The Cal-look Lounge

I built a 1967 VW sedan with Calif licence plate DELUX67. Has anybody seen this car? It won Best of Show at Bug In 25. I would appreciate any leads. My name is Mike Billings and was a long time member of DKP II. I built the car, essentially, at FAT Performance in the very early 80's.
Thanks ;D

waouww mike billing himself   :o :o, welcome a board mike ,hope you will enjoy the place like your ancient friends of games

greeting from belgium
fabs

oh beer are for sarge  ;D ;D ;D

i suppose that you're talking about this one  ;D

 ;)

 ;)
i hope that you have some old pictures of your old ride  ::) , because there's a small group fans of your 67  , and the only know pictures  came from the vw trends

rgd
fabs

Monkiboy is going to freak out! :D Welcome Mike, I thought I recognised the number plate but couldn't work out where from! There have been a few discussions about your car - do a search for your name and see what comes up! :o

mike your ears must have been burning ;D welcome and thanks for a great alround looker :)

Killer car!

I have to admit i've found some inspiration in the building of my 68 in your awesome 67..

Welcome here and good luck with the search..  :)

real good, another old guy with a red car..... ::) ;)

i've just buy this  ;)

(http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/8/9/9/0/3/4/webimg/294072346_o.jpg?nc=616)

scan will follow when it arrive

WOW! What a response. Yes that is my car, regardless of who owns it. I'm the culprit
I had no idea so many folks find the DELUX so inspiring ( another person's word).
Anyway its good to be back in touch I'm looking forward to meeting new and old friends.
Good bye for now,
Mike

Mike, you might find it easier to just start over with another car. Create another work of art.

a very big welcome! your car is very very nice, not only monkiboy thinks it is one of the best ever made.

Here is one of the other threads on the car
http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,8646.0.html

Nice to see you here Mike.  Your 67 was one fo my favorites when I was a kid and influenced my love for 67's

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Neil was right  :D)

How on earth did I miss this one  :o ::)

A very big Lounge welcome Mr Billing  ;D As you my have noticed from the other threads your 67 is probably my ALL TIME favourite Cal Looker - I have been trying to find out what happened to it for AGES, I will be watching this thread thats for sure  ;)

Mike plese give us some personal memories of your amazing little 67 ;) :)

Well guys when I get a chance to get my thoughts together I'll try to share some memories that may be of interest to some.
However, if you want to know who my all time favorite car belonged to it is Keith Goss and his Chop Top 62 Sedan. His was the level of clean that I was competing with. I still think his car was better than mine. The only thing I had on him was the fact that mine was a 1967 versus his 62. The 1967 Sedan has a mystique all it's own. Anybody out there agree?

Well, of course!   ;)

Amen...testify!  :D

both were employed at FAT at the same time ??? , keith won the best of show at bug in 16(apr76) and you at bug in 25 (oct80) , thus 4 years later , so keith was still with the car at the time at bug in  25 ???
and DKPII were still active too ???

 ;)

fabs

True enough, although by the time I finished my car Keith had left the employ of FAT but he was indeed still in possesion of his Chop Top. What a car, the absolute best chop job I've ever seen. At the time there were some other chop tops but the lines were nowhere near as natural as Keith's. His car looked like it came from the factory with that low profile roof line.
DKP II was very much active at the time. Roger Grago was president, I was secretary and that's all I can remember. As they say if you can remember the 70's you weren't there. LOL

mike keith's car is still alive ,  she's in scotland now , and the new owner is on the this forum too  ;)

here's keith car at european bug in 2 years ago  ;) still the same

HI Mike

Thanks Speedwell

Yer im the owner of the Keiths chop, but like everyone else, I love your car too.

Im sure your not the only one looking for it.......  ;D

Welcome to the lounge and looking forward to some stories.

Russell

russell you have too many red cars in your collection ::) ::)......................... ;D ;D ;D

fabs   ;)

I don't recognize the deck lid or the two horizontal bars between the front nerf bars but I do the wheel combo, the color, the roof line and the awesome way those front seats head rests pop up in the rear window. I love that car.
Lets see if I can remember...motor 84/90, cam???(Engle 130??) 48IDA Webers (naturally); 15/8 exhaust thru merged collector, although the collector I see in the image looks more modern. I'd love to see more.
Heck I'd love to see mine! IF it ever shows up, I hope it was left alone, no funky mods. I wanted as best I could, to build the car like  Wolfsburg would if they were ever going to produce a performance sedan.

alot of nice cars 20years ago went to japan thats were i would be looking thats were my 67 went. good luck on your search.and welcome. if you wanted to talk to keith i have his #. he was a long time freind and still is. but when he moved away things were not the same. yea i loved his car to. keith was one ANIL MITICULAS to detail SOB  ;) UD  . 

Hi Mike!, long time no see....it must be pushing 30 years since we worked for the excitable boys at FAT. I hope you find your 67, ands its still in decent shape after all the time and effort you put into it.

Regarding Keith's car, I recall his car having the first dual Q-P muffler setups, and one if not the first with 7 inch alloys. Also, wasn't Keith's car
stolen at one time?  I remember him being heart broken at the time.  While we're in the way-back machine, what ever happened to Guy Newhouse, Keith's fellow galley slave. Last I heard he was working for Nissan...one sharp cookie.

Best of luck in your quest  :) 

Hi Mike. When I bought the car off Keith in 1995 (for $6000), it had been sitting minus its engine, since 1984. He'd blown up the original (912 rod broke...) and rebuilt it using a new FI case and had to have one of the Fumio heads duplicated by Clyde Berg.The engine was complete but not fitted. The spec at the time was 84mm Okrasa crank, 912 rods, 90.5s, Engle 125 with EMPI ratio rockers, 48s with Keith's own linkage based on the EMPI one, 1 5/8 header and a very rusty (and unoriginal) dual Q/P. The paintwork had gone bad, and blistered all over, so we had to bare-metal and repaint it, using the correct Sahara Beige paint. The chrome suspension parts had lost a lot of their plating over the years, but the pan was still good and shiney, if a little battle-scarred in places. It had a stock transmission with H/D side-cover, Berg sideplate stiffeners and a Super-Diff. It still had Porsche 356C discs at the front and redrilled 356B drums at the back, with the fins machined down so the Fuchs would fit OK.

I rebuilt the motor with an Engle Fk87 and Bugpack H-beam rods, and a Berg header, along with a Vertex magneto. I also installed a full close-ratio trans with Quaife LSD. It ran 12.84 on 215/65 radials, driving to and from the track.

The decklid was the Keith Goss original, while the two bars between the front nerf bars were original Keith additions, too, to allow the fitment of a license plate.

A great car, so far ahead of its time, and one which I am honoured to have 'saved' from the Japanese!  :D

Keith sold me the car with a heavy heart (his family was moving to Oregon), but was delighted to do a deal on three accounts: we were both called Keith; we were both the same age and, thirdly, he remembered an article I had written about his car in an English magazine back n 1977... He knew it was going to a good home. I only sold it when my life was going through what we shall call 'a difficult personal period'. I would only sell it to someone who would appreciate it for what it was, and in Russell I found that person. It was the car that pretty much kicked off the whole 'Gasser Garage' collection. It's in safe hands.  :)

while the two bars between the front nerf bars were original Keith additions, too, to allow the fitment of a license plate.


You did what to the original rare Fat T-bars? :o ;D










[/quote]

Troublemaker... :D

Nice red '67 Mike, only read articles about the car, but I have to say it is on the list of my Top 5 cool hot rodded VW's (being a '67 helps). See you around,

Jim Ratto

.... and now, back to the other red '67 ;D  Who influenced who, here??

http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,9250.0.html

FYI for those interested. The DELUX was featured in two VW magazines. The first publication was the March 1981 issue of VW Trends magazine and the other was the April 1981 issue of VW & Porsche Magazine. Both articles were written and photographed by Jere Alhadeff. Why Hot VW's never ran an article was always a mystery to me.

"Some like it hot but I like it red!"
Right Sarge?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavZ25wM6W0

Mike, I can answer that question. As you insisted that your car be on the cover or not at all. VW & Porsche promised you the cover, (but in the end, only gave you only a window-in). You and Jere went with that magazine, and since our policy at the time was not to run a car that was already featured in another VW publication, we did not feature it. Looking back, our loss perhaps, as it was certainly the best car around. But at that time, off-road was a bigger seller for Hot VWs than street cars. So, things didn't work out in your favor it guess. Jere did a great job on your car as usual. Classic photos.

You know what, that is new news. I don't recall a conversation with anybody but Jere. And the answer I got, the answer I remember was, I don't know why they won't run you (they being Hot VW's). If I had a conversation with anyone besides Jere I am completely blank, no recollection. I was 23 years old and not exactly comfortable approaching a publication on my own. It's true I would have liked the cover but I wasn't sophisticated enough to be making stipulations.
In the end I just chalked it up to oh well, darn, that's disappointing. And that is how I feel about it now except I'm no longer feeling disappointed just surprised by the news. Hmm A long time ago. But you are right, very right Jere did a fabulous job, terrific photos, great articles, great memories.

built it agian, no doubt it is still cover worthy material  :P

Mike, there is another possibility as well. Jere was the one that insisted on the cover.

now ask jere to see if he still have those camera films  ::) , you have found yours with IPII in 91 after 20years ,  ;D ;D

Mike, you have a pm.

Well Deano, its water way, way under the bridge. Whatever happened I'm sure that the best of intentions were considered. At this point that's all that matters.

 ;)

Hi guys,

I sure wish I had put late 7's on the rear of mine, they really looked great on Mikes car.

 Here is the latest that I have found out about Mikes car;  I spoke to Rich Kimball 4 days ago to see if he remembered anymore about the car.  He received Mikes car from Marv Hendricks in trade for monies that Marv owed him.  Rich had it for awhile at his shop, (bugs 4 U) and sold it to a kid in Riverside, (as I stated in an earlier thread) and Rich said that he thought that the kid crashed the car and it was sold off in pieces.  I hope that Rich is wrong but maybe that is why we haven't heard of it in all these years.

Mike give Kimball a yell.

Regards,
Jim

Can you guys in Cali look up the registration or the VIN with the DMV?

I did sugest this a the other threads but no one replied  :-\ :)

I wonder if Mike still remembers the VIN number?  Maybe check the personalized plate?  As I remember though in CA, only law enforcement can run VIN's and plates, (so thieves cannot see who owns the car and where it resides and go steal it) , maybe I'm wrong but it's worth asking. :D

Regards,
Jim 

They didn't understand your accent Lee.

California is super sticky about giving out vehicle owner information, unless you are a dealer or ?. I know that T-3 Dave ran the last plate shown, and it came up no-go. Which only means that it could be in another state, or just no longer on the books (Non-Op status).

Regarding the thread response made by Jim LoGudice about the DELUX perhaps being wrecked. I think I met the kid that bought the car from RKimball. This guy shows up at my place in Ontario out of no where. Says he found me through my VW buddies. He wanted only me to figure out what was wrong with the way it was running. Ron Fleming gave me a set of old EMPI (but new condition) intake manifolds. The car was running like it had a vacuum leak. It did, the left manifold was broken at the base. I couldn't believe the car was drivable the carb was flopping from side to side so bad.
This was the last time I saw the car and it was about 1985. To the best of my memory the car was as I sold it to Marv Hendricks.
The thought of it being wrecked and parted out is sickening. One thing though. The car had relatively high visibility among the VW folks. If the car were wrecked and or parted out you would think there would be more information on it. The parts themselves were highly identifiable. For example the Berg 5 Speed with polished case ribs and chrome axle tubes etc etc.

mike, I sure do hope you find some breaking news on the delux67. You did an excellent job on it. Alot of us wish we still had our cars from back then. Here's hoping you start another car. I did, still not as nice as yours but you would have a ton of support on your project. bilboa

Bill
I was just talking to my wife about the viability of a new project car. There are many, many considerations. We'll just have to wait and see if it is in the big picture or not.
I'm stumped however about the year your car is. Guess I'm a bit rusty. Littlle help? Real nice looking machine. Tell a little bit about it.
Mike

mike, car is a european 65, original bahama blue color. Have had a few engines.tranny combos in it, from race gas 2332/close ratio 4 speed to newest 2442 pump gas with berg 5 speed w/zf . Disc brake front, polished 356 b drums in back.Car is now having rear apron being made removalbe with pee shooter holes filled.Engine compartment going through rehab trying new ideas on oil breather tank and other eng compartment looks.Thanks to now local, danny at gab-fab.I am sure anything you build will be top shelf..Keep up the "dkp blood"  p.s.  you knowing me as a partsman and a challenged tech, I built and dynoed the motor !!. 182 hp w/belt and muff at 4800 alt.(lotsa help for sure).  do it...bill

Dont loose heart mike - I have heard the "brought it - wrecked it - broke it for parts" story about SOOOOOO many cars  ::)

Do you remember the kids name that came to see you  ??? what did he do about the broken manifold ???

P.s did you get my pm :)

No I don't remember the kids name but I remember the day clear enough. I couldn't do anything about the manifold but the thing was hanging together enough for the carb linkage to hang together for a short drive. After he left I have no idea what he did to fix it. New set of manifolds was the only thing that could've fixed it.
I did get your PM, thanks. If that rear quarter shot of the car impacted you that strongly, wait till I get some pictures together and get some of them posted. I have images of the car before I took it apart, during the rebuild and of course after. I just have to un-bury them. My wife buried them in a closet somewhere.
I hope you're right about the rumors. Time will tell...maybe.
MB

that will be cool and apreciate mike

rgd
fabs

Still cool to hear the story dude - don't you just wish you'd taken his number  ::) ;)

I can't wait to see ALL the pic's - trust me this is EXACTLY what us here on the lounge have been waiting for  ;) ;D

P.s you given me a few more little deatil ideas already!

This is a great shot of the Delux 67 before it was Deluxe. This image was taken by Mike Dunphy at the 1/8 mile drags at Jack Murphy stadium in San Diego around 1978. The motor was a 69X87.5 (1641CC), engle 120 cam, twin 42 IDA's carbs a power pulley and short throw shifter ( forgot the brand name but it had a black T handle). Most everything else was stock. Imagine my amazement as I was blowing this Vet in the weeds. He killed the engine at the tree and had to re-start. This image was taken just before he blew by me at about 120 mph but I think the picture is very cool. I've told many a tall tale with this photo. LOts of fun pulling peoples legs with this one.

I figured this image would entertain.
   
I've found some good pictures. I'll begin posting some soon. I thought chronological order might be interesting.
[attachment=2]

     Hi Mike

    Nice to hear from you it has been a long time for sure. Glad that you are looking for your car I think that as we get older we all dream someday to find our first  Cal Looker. Mike if you
have the VIN # and nobody can help let me know I can search  it for you. Let me know

   See ya
   Frenchy Dehoux

Hi Frenchy,
The last thing I remember about you was that you drove an oval ( or was it a split) window from Sunnymeade to Los Angeles (or something like that) everyday for work. I was much impressed by your commitment to your job and willingness to make that drive.
I don't have the VIN number. Unless I can find it in an old photo or something I think I'm out of luck on that search option.
Thanks for the offer.
MB

    I drove my 1951 split window that was owned by Shaky Jake back in the days and drove it 72 miles one way from Rialto to Long Beach everyday for 6 years. I now live in Tempe Arizona for the last 15 years. Mike again if you locate a VIN # I am sure I can help. On the other hand my old 1967 Yellow Karman Ghia is in JAPAN.

   Take care
   Frenchy

Shaky Jake. now that's a name I haven't heard since back in the day. I knew it was a split after all. WOW, what a car.
TTYL
Mike

Chuck was someone we didn't get enough of.  :(

Cool to see the pictures starting to get posted  ;D

I REALLY hope you find that Vin No# dude - start scaning those old pic's carefully  ;)

So did Mike ever find his 67 ??? :)

well ??? ;)

    Mike are you there ?

   Frenchy

     Fred

     Give me your VIN on your car and I can help you with this I have a friend here that as done some search for me in the past and did come through same for Mike Billings.

    Frenchy

...  it can happen, FRED!  ;D

I sold one of my early 67's at Bug-In 22 to a guy from Torrance, California.  It was around 1977/78??? I would love to know what happened to it.  My fear is it may have been wrecked.  Would love to find it.  Was my first full on Cal Looker...after a few earlier street VWs.  Here are some shots. Anyone from So Cal remember seeing it back then? I was parked in the front row of the Car show facing the pit side bleachers at Bug-In 22.

Here are a couple shots at different Auto Haus Stores in So Cal.  One is the Orange store and the other is the Costa Mesa store.  You could not miss my car if you knew the dash.  I took all the gauges out of an Opel GT, got the right sending units for them and built a custom Herculon padded dash.  It was one of a kind. Like all my street cars, I drive it everywhere.  Small motor, mild cam, big valves and dual webers.  I sold it with a rather tame 1641 and hung on to my original engine that was in it.

Rick Mortensen

Been thinking about this thread resently - Anyone know if anything ever came of it ??? Any more info on what happened to the car ???  :)

  As of about 8 months ago , no new info. from Mike. Its hard to imagine how such a special car could disappear so completely !

Thats what I was thinking  :-\

I dunno, lots of things can happen over the course of multiple decades, I reckon, unfortunate as it may be.  Any chance it went to Japan? I know a lot of U.S. cars went overseas in the 80s...

So, do you want me to start looking for it.........  ;D

YES!!!! Then sell it to me  ;) :)

Well from the looks on the date of his last post...what happened to Mike?  I always loved that car since the 1980 or 81 Vw Trends

come on Russell  ;)