The Cal-look Lounge

here's the motor it was an 1800cc with 48 idas mounted on race trim manifolds on the dashboard we found vdo gauges

Its looks so cool here :P

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b115/gold65turbo/greenbug.jpg)



Its looks so cool here :P

Martin, have you tried www.restowagen.co.uk  :D :D :D :D

Got have those Dingle Balls around the Windows all you now is another up in Smoke Movie LOL who owned it in that picture?

Judging from the Wide front Wheel base I would say its on a Ball Joint Pan I LL Bet If Ed Craig Saw That Picture He would Die It is a Shame To See such A car that Had alot of History End Up Looking like a Rat Rod I think It Looks Terrible I still Remember Ed Having the Car Park Out Back At Auto Haus on Beach Blvd.in Buenn Park I saw Ed not long ago at a VW car show his Daughter has a real Clean 66 Sunroof I am going to have to Save this Picture for Him  anyone know where the Car is Now??

And what did car guys outside of the VW scene think about Mike's split?


That was a fun era, height of the muscle car scene. The cruise scene was on Harbor Blvd. going between Big Carl’s and Taco Villa - straight out of American Graffiti. We were the anti-muscle car crowd that was basically laughed at. Before I built my car a fast street VW ran in the high 15’s or 16’s, hardly a threat to the muscle cars. The really fast VW’s were strip only – the Inch Pincher, Schley Bros, Vittone, etc. But no one that I knew of was using that technology in a daily driver street car. So I decided to go for it. Ron Fleming and I built the motor at Gene Berg’s shop when he first moved to Orange from Washington. I had it dyno’d by Dean Lowry. After a full pulls he just looked at us and said we were crazy, “you can’t drive this on the street. It has more hp than my Inch Pincher did a year ago.”  We just smiled, said “we’ll see”. Actually it worked far better than we had even hoped. It was a torque monster that pulled right off of idle. I’m sure the Vertex magneto helped a lot. Ron did a great job on the heads. Suddenly, I had a legitimate low 13-second street car, with fan belt, muffler, and Pirelli’s. American cars needed to have slicks and uncorked headers to run faster than that. Anyway, back to the muscle car street scene. They’d never seen a fast VW on the street before. I’ll share three of my favorite memories. I was cruising through the car hop section in the back of Big Carl’s and a guy in a Chevelle stuck his head out and started laughing at my car. I stopped backed up, bounced the front end a little and did a major burn out lifting the front wheels a few inches. I went back around, stopped in front of his car, yelled out “want to race that piece of s#*t.?” The look on his face was priceless as he slumped in his seat and everyone around was laughing. Another time I was alone driving at night on Harbor Blvd. in La Habra. I pulled up next to a 1968 Mustang fastback. He was obviously very proud of his car as he still had the white shoe polish bracket time of 11.85 on his windshield, presumably from Wed. night bracket racing at OCIR the night before. So I revved him off. He and his buddy just looked at me and started laughing. Obviously he didn’t take me seriously. He just pulled away rather quickly and I stayed a half a car back then punched it and lurched ahead of him. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces as they snapped their heads toward me in disbelief. So we pulled up to the next intersection (fortunately traffic was very light, no one else around). Now he knew I was serious. Watching the side yellow light anticipating the green light, we both took off burning. I shut it down when my speedo said 100-mph and I had him by about 2 open cars. He turned left, I turned right, splitting up in case a cop saw us. I would have liked to have heard their conversation after that. Shortly thereafter I was without my car at Taco Villa and we approached a crowd engaged in some animated story telling. Standing back and listening I heard them talking about an 11-second street VW. Man, I was wondering where the heck is that car. I didn’t know of any that fast. Then one of the guys from the crowd that knew me and had set up some races for me that he made some good money on whispered to me “they’re talking about your car.” I couldn’t get any more races from that crowd after that.

Mike Mahaffey

I think at one point Mahaffey's car did have a 2074cc in it built by him, Ron Fleming and Gene Berg. I think Ron did the heads. I know Mike mentioned on CLF it ran 48IDAs, Vertex mag and they had DDS dyno it and Dean was scratching his head saying something about "you guys are nuts running THIS on the street..."

There is a short mention in the 1970 Hot Rod article about the car too, running IDAs and a cam similar to I/Gas cars of the day.

One of the all time coolest hot rod VW's ever. AWESOME pictures!!!

Here it is with another license number.. Suppose that's because it is on black plates here, and the number was changed when it got the new blue plates? Pictures are from "the bible".

I'm pretty sure I have seen a later picture of this car in another color. Same license number. Trouble is I can't remember where.. Need some help from mr Speedwell here..

Found it! But I most correct myself, this is obviously an earlier version of the same car, not later.
Picture found somewhere on the net, probably taken from someone on here. Let me know and credit will be given...

Found it! But I most correct myself, this is obviously an earlier version of the same car, not later.
Picture found somewhere on the net, probably taken from someone on here. Let me know and credit will be given...

When I had it the license plate was UOT 994. I never had blue plates. The picture of it brown was taken at a Bug In at OCIR. It was only brown for a short while. I had Becker's paint it 1970 Porsche Conda Green. That's when I had the chrome removed. I left the bumper slots incase I got a ticket for not running bumpers, but I never used nerf bars or anything else - no chrome anywhere. The one interior black and white shot looking down toward the dash is after I had it. The other shots are what I had done. The seats had a black rectangular insert pattern. If I could figure out how to insert pictures here I would post some.
Mike Mahaffey

........ and still ran in the low 13's. And drove it to school on Monday.
Mike Mahaffey

welcome and thanks for charing such memeories!!!

this is the REALLIFE CAL-LOOK BIBLE!!!

it's getting better and better here on this site.

Welcome to the Lounge, Ed!  Maybe YOU can recall a few old stories of our days at Auto Haus...I'm way too old to remember much of anything.  ::) ;D

With all the current speed parts and big horsepower of today, it's hard to truely appreciate Mike's accomplishments of long ago.  I remember taking an all to short ride in Mike's car when it had the 2180; how it litteraly blew those poor Pirelli's away and how easily the back-end came out on the second gear shift...then the close ratio's...unbelievable back then! 

I love 8-spokes, in fact I've had a set in my attic for years waiting......., but they just don't look right on a split.

There are some awesome pictures here of Mahaffery/Craig's car but one interior shot is actually of my car.
I think I've seen more of the car here than when Ed Craig and I were in DRA together.

Great thread

Marc Buehler

I'll post some more things on Monday about my car. But this weekend it's off to Phoenix for the Bugorama with Hunsaker and Fleming!
Mike Mahaffey

Didn't Bob McClure run something similar to those t-bars on his turbo'd drag beetle? I'm sure he had thicker t-bars... Speedwell, you have a picture to confirm (or deny!)?

Cool photo...