1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)
Jim Ratto:
VW Jamboree, Costa Mesa CA, Summer 1990, Merged Header and Gary Berg's '67 Up Close
I also found the GBE booth, where Dee and another lady were selling T shirts, sweatshirts, decals etc. The other lady may have been Kathie, but I can't say for sure. In any case, I bought a bright yellow GBE T shirt that I had for years. I wore it all the time probably for the next 5 years until I ruined it. I remember Jerry used to kid me and say "I bet that kid sleeps in that damn shirt."
With all the stops and chit chatting I had almost forgotten about finding an exhaust. But, as I walked around wide-eyed and overwhelmed, I found a guy with a swap spot and a bunch of merged headers all tangled up and stacked up. I started talking to the guy, about "safe topics" so as not to look like an idiot, and asked about some of the headers he was selling. Off to one side of his swap spot, he had a brand new Phoenix 1-5/8" merged system, with dual cans bolted to it, and except for the chromed tailpipes, the whole thing was painted glossy navy blue. Man did it look good. Except he wanted $150 for it, and I was now down to under $100. But being a nice guy, he asked me "What are you putting it on?" So I explained the pile of parts I had and he said "You know, I have this Four Tuned inch and a half, with a stinger, but no mufflers. How's $25?" (!!) It was a nice, almost new, full merged competition setup, long collector, small flange with "4T" in weld bead on each side of the merge. I was all over it. And I learned the guy selling it.... it was my salesman at Scat Enterprises at the time, Pat. (BH stocked lots of Scat back then too, all the seats, adapter rails, shifter, their ratio rockers, gland nuts, etc). So that made the deal even sweeter.
But now the real reason I drove all day and night the day before, contending with crop duster spray, 105F heat, and sunburn. I was hoping Gary Berg's car would be there. I kept walking around, now carrying a merged header with a stinger bolted to it, trying not to trip people, or scratch show cars. I saw a lot of flashes of metallic blue, but then as I got close the car would be a Super Beetle, or it would have white 8 spokes. Or it was a Baja. But then I remember this, very well:
I was walking south, near some big assembly halls, and through a crowd of people, I saw the glint of light off a BRM wheel and a ray of very bright blue metallic.
His car was here. I walked up and there was the car I had read about maybe 100-200 times in the last 8-9 months. It was below a blue tent, which was tied down to 4 black lightened flywheels. The doors, front hood and engine lid were all open. I set my header down near the wall behind where the car was parked. The pictures I had seen in Hot VW's really, didn't capture this car. Everything was perfect. Again, you have to remember, I was into VW's for maybe 3 years or so. My car was kind of a rag tag mess, new paint, but old bumpers, run of the mill chrome wheels and an engine which was still just a daydream. This car had mile deep, perfect blue paint, a very simple interior, sat just right, and it had BRM wheels (there were no repop's then, so unless you owned them, you NEVER saw them). And then I started to look over the engine and its detail. Honestly, I had no real idea what I was looking at. But I appreciated that it looked to me like real VW parts were used where they'd work. I came from a shop where we sold cheap, flimsy chrome engine tin and dumb chrome fan shrouds that forced you to get rid of the oil cooler. We sold transparent blue caps for 009's and plastic quick shift kits. This car had all original VW engine tin, all in gloss black. It wore all the original rubber air seals, like the pictures of engines in the Bentley repair books. It had fresh air heaters, but they fed into a big piped header. Also under the car was an oil sump that looked as big as another case. And everything was dirt free. Every nut, wire, brake hose, fuel line, underside of fenders, everything was surgically clean.
I only have a few pics left from that day, over the years I've lost many. But here's what I have
Jim Ratto:
VW Jamboree, Costa Mesa CA, Summer 1990, DKP III Cars, BRM's, Slicks and Nitrous
But it wasn't just Berg's car. Lined up next to his car was a row of cars like I hadn't seen before. These cars, lined up, as complete under the radar, outcasts, really did more for me in a few hours than I can really say, write, whatever. I'm not embellishing. It was real powerful. Like I had said, I was kind of lost in the hobby, to some extent. The cars and guys that had them, for the most part, in my hometown, were lame. None of them were fast and to me they looked dumb. I never got why these guys I knew of were even into VW's if they were only going to make them look dumb, but not work to make them fast. To me, the ultimate was something that looked tame and slow, but would drop kick any of the local V8 guys into the next county. Now in front of me were a whole row of cars, that in the context of the era, looked very, very unassuming. None of them were the typical for the time. Some even had stock seats, stock side moldings, and Berg's car and another black car had full bumpers, like only the vintage nerds still ran! There was a dark maroon '67, with polished BRM's and just euroblade bumpers, and no moldings. It had Kadrons, so it didn't strike me as a serious performance car. There was a squeakly clean pearl white oval window, again with BRM's (but grey spokes), and what looked like a huge engine. It had the same 48 carbs as Berg's car. OK it must be fast. There was an unbelievably simple black oval window, with BRM's as well. It had a motor like Bergs, and the white oval, all black tin, and 48IDAs (How did these guys get those carbs to run right? My 36 DRLAs were a big pain in the ass!). There was a super clean salmon-red ragtop with BRMs and another nice looking motor, but it had these short, smaller carbs, with air filters. Most of these cars ran weird rube-Goldberg linkage that I hadn't seen before. Then there was a bright green sedan, with BRM's. For some reason, this car stood out. It wore no bumpers, no moldings and it didn't have a black engine. All of the cooling tin was painted the same cool green as the rest of the car. It had Weber 48's and it looked like it had very few wires in the engine compartment. It just looked simple. I assumed because it was so simple, this car was just a show car (in a few months' time I'd learn I was wrong, in person). And then there was the real misfit. A black ragtop sedan, with its full bumpers, side moldings, stock dash, and stock interior (at least the front half). But the same car had BRM's, treaded drag slicks on the rear, a cage inside, as well as a blue nitrous tank. Under the RH running board was a huge 3" pipe. At the back of the car, a 3" pipe came off the merged header and made a U turn towards the 1&2 valve cover under the car. I peeked under the car and there was a big sump like Berg's, and a rowdy looking little muffler tied into that 3" pipe. Then engine bay was stuffed with 48 Webers and a big funny looking distributor. The bottom pulley was different than everybody else's too. Obviously this car was meant to go fast, but overall, aside from the rear tires, and that pipe, most would never know. But to me it looked like the 65 year old lady that had owned this car from new had been mugged and had her car taken away by some nutjob. I loved it.
Jim Ratto:
I found this online today on YouTube. Unfortunately, it doesn't have hardly any footage of the California Look cars present that day, but it gives you an account of the trends in vogue at this show. Yes this is the same show I was at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDS38Ypsr4c
Rick Meredith:
Great story Jim... really well written
Quote from: Jim Ratto on October 06, 2016, 05:03:35 am
Somehow I ended up, off the freeway in Laguna Niguel. I was falling asleep, cooked, hungry and dehydrated. I drove around aimlessly until I found a Spanish style lodge, pretty swank looking, with tile roof, and adobe-looking walls. The cars parked outside the place were a few levels above my Fiat. But I parked and asked at the lobby if they had a room.
I wonder if this is the Laguna Hills Lodge? It matches the description. It's about 3 miles from me. on El Toro Rd.
brotherbob:
I just want to say I have really enjoyed reading this thread and remembering when I was young and stupid. I got into VW's in 1981 and NO-ONE in my north central Texas high school was into VWs but I was and and I bought every dune buggie and bug magazine I could afford. These cars documented in this thread were HUGE in cultivating my VW ethos. I did really dumb things to my first bug trying to be like the Cal Look guys on a super tight budget! LOL , thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Anyhow Thanks for this and please keep this thread going!
BB
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