The Cal-look Lounge

Hi all , does anyone have any idea what the colour of Mark Thurbers bug was . My wife is trying to choose a colour for her bug .

Cheers , Rob

a metallic brown

Woaaaa the Aronson's car with Goodyear is AWESOME !!!!  :o :o

i thought they called it 'roothbeer' in the callook book, not sure i that is a colourname after all. but it was also the inspiration for my fastbacks brown.

not trying to highjack this good topic, im sorry if anyones cranky for the question, but would any of the original guys recall what kinda bracket set up yas were using for the front licence plate, ive tried many attempts but they all smacked the hood in the wind, please if anyone can help me out pm me or whatever floats your boat!

once again im sorry but these pics pegged my interest

I ran a similar setup when I ran t-bars on my '67. I used an extra pair of the tubes that ran from the top of the uprights to the bumper brackets on US bumpers. I increased the bend where the tubes met the overriders. The other ends I bolted to the drain holes in the spare tire well using large fender washers to distribute the weight and stabilize the plate.

Believe it to be Ford Roman Bronze ...

like this homage car

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/Heydon/DSCF0027.jpg)

Thanks for the help , I'll check out the ford colour . Don't mind the thread hijack , I was wondering that too. I think we're gonna go for buggy bumpers , so I'll hang the plate from that .
She can't choose between Metallic brown or a Street Dragon style green.

Cheers , Rob

I can't see the picture here at work (photobucket is blocked by the school firewall) but I'm guessing that it's one of Steve Bodycote's '63. If it is, I can tell you that it was definately Ford Roman Bronze, applied by a garage in Kidderminster. It had a Bernie interior and a Stateside Tuning 1776. In it's previous Fontana Grey incarnation it had one of the first sets of MWS BRMs - it ran on polished fives first because MWS hadn't got the wheels ready! One of my favourite cars, in both the guises it was in our club, although I've not seen it for years!

Was Thurber's car the same colour before he lost the trim?

I remember Mark's car as being more bronze then brown.  Here's some old pics ...

WOW. That's a GREAT looking ride. Soooooo many cool details! Thanks for posting those, Sarge. Made my morning :)

Whatever happened to the car? Would be a great car to find/restore :)

cool pict bro thx for sharing  ;)

My pleasure guys!  Here's a couple more pics I found... looks like the BRM spokes were painted dark brown.  Having worked with Mark at Commonwealth VW for many years, we talked about his car a lot.  I want to say the color was a Mopar selection and that the car no longer exists.  Looking closely, the car appears to be a 1965 (license light), too.  We both remember punching off from many traffic lights together back then.... ;D 8)

when seeing that last picture of mark's dashboard , i just remember i ever saw this one somewhere   :o

here we go , it was in volksworld  in teh report how to create a real cal looker  ;D

Geez and I thought I had come up with this on my own!  ???  ;D

Looks like a '64 to me, if the deckild is correct to the car.

x2 and the windows  mounts are the bigger one , not the small one like the one a 65

I like the second picture the best with the DRF decals in the windows.  ;D

I called Mark... his car was a 1962 that he added a later model license light surround to so it would look like a '67.

As I look at the first posted photo, Mark's car with full bumpers and not yet lowered, and Gregs car in the earliest stages of it's transition to it's iconic future self, does anyone know what year that photo might have been taken in?

Sarge, those pics are real neat.

In it's last incarnation Mark's car had a engine turned brass dashboard, which looked bitchen in his car. I don't recall the number, but the dash
took beaucoup hours to complete.

i never even thought about using the uprights!! thanks guys thats awsome!

another question on all the famous early cars running berg linkages across the fan mount they all seem to have bolt on eyes holding the linkage rod, i have two sets of earlies but they both have welded on tabs, was this a custom change for these guys or did berg just use this style between productions??

      Back in 1974 Mark sold his car to a classmate  of mine Rick Goodin for $1400.00 , a few months later Rick rear ended someone, fixing the car at Beckers cost Rick another $1400.00 bucks, he kept the car another year or so, (many good times with it,) sold it oddly enough, for $1400.00  I lost track of it about 1979 . That car was a steal at the price, when Mark sold it to Rick it had a strong running 1600cc Holley Bug spray motor, chrome wheels with the hubcap-lugnut area painted black , the brass engine turned dash was done by Mark himself , you have to do work like that yourself to realize what a labor of love it was-is , it was a great car, built by a great guy. During my time working at F.A.T. he helped me in so many ways, Thank You, MarkThurber,     KG

I can't see the picture here at work (photobucket is blocked by the school firewall) but I'm guessing that it's one of Steve Bodycote's '63. If it is, I can tell you that it was definately Ford Roman Bronze, applied by a garage in Kidderminster. It had a Bernie interior and a Stateside Tuning 1776. In it's previous Fontana Grey incarnation it had one of the first sets of MWS BRMs - it ran on polished fives first because MWS hadn't got the wheels ready! One of my favourite cars, in both the guises it was in our club, although I've not seen it for years!
[/quote]

Hi

It was sold on in a serious of trades and when I last saw it had lost much of the cars cal look influence and had a lot of questionable (IMO) custom touches.

SOme great history shared here- thanks ;D

funny how the colour of the english 63 is probably the same as mine... i was inspired like i said by the callook book of Keith many years ago and somehow that colour or idea stuck so much to paint it that way, i didn't look the colour up from Mark's car, but i flipped through hundreds of colourcharts and paintcodes from all different brands and always kept coming back to this brown (the original intention was to keep the seasand colour or a mettalic hue of seasand, but none stoud out as much as this brown). so in the end i chose what i really liked and that was a US ford colour. i had a paintcode, but never bothered to write it down...
when i had to change the decklid for a correct one i had to repaint it and the colour of the car was scanned. they didn't come up with the ford colour, but with a audi 80 or 100 colour from 83/84, which is also cool in my opinion.
and yes Marks car is more bronze then brown in all the other pictures i have seen afterwards. so it was somewhat of an inspiration, and it is cool to hear that there is a similar coloured bug in england, i didn't know... maybe in the future even 2...  ;D there is also a similar, but lighter one that comes from Switzerland and that was featured in ultra some years ago.

sorry for rambling.

Great old pics Sarge of one of my favorite (hardly ever mentioned) cars.

What was in the motor? 1700, 110 cam, etc?

My name is Chris Shelton. A long time ago my pal Stephan Szantai said I should join so I did. I've met a few of you guys over the years but you probably don't remember me. Anyway, that's my intro for my first post.

Chrysler used a color that looked a lot like that on Dodge and Plymouth cars and trucks in the late '60s and early '70s. It's called Dark Tan Poly (poly the early name for metallic). The Ditzler paint code is 2129. The DuPont code is 50967 LH.

Google just showed me an image of a car that is supposedly DTP but it's way too red to be right. It looks more like Dark Orange Poly which was another popular Chrysler color from the era. Poke around with the terms 1970 and "dark tan poly" in quotes and you'll find a good example in a page or two. There's another lighter version called Tan Poly but it's later and far lighter. 

If you're looking for THE root-beer brown that everybody else used, that's easy. The most common variant was a '60/'61 GM color called Cordovan, Cordovan Mist, Mahogany, or Cherrywood Bronze depending on the year and make. Probably the best documented example of that color is on the Doyle Gammell '32 Ford coupe It's brown with a very slight red undertone. It's beautiful. As you can see they're all the same color code. That color was era correct since it was released and remained popular as a 'custom mix' well into the late '70s.

Apologies if the chart gets all skewed. Y'all are bright. You can figure it out. It's not like the information changes from line to line.

Year      Make    color name           Ditzler   PPG   Dupont 
1960    Buick    Cordovan                21874  4035L   882-93577L
1960    Oldsmobile    Cordovan           21874  4035L   882-93577L
1960    Pontiac    Mahogany          21874  4035L   882-93577L
1961    Buick    Cordovan          21874  4035L     882-93577L
1961    Oldsmobile    Cordovan Mist        21874  4035L     882-93577L
1961    Pontiac    Cherrywood Bronze   21874  4035L     882-93577L
1961    Tempest    Cherrywood Bronze     21874  4035L     882-93577L

My pleasure, Jim!  Wish we could get Mark on here to answer a few of the questions others have posted.  I know he had several different engines in his rig over the years (didn't we all?), but I can't remember what the last and fastest was... I'm thinking 78.4 X 88.


Welcome to the Lounge, Chris and thanks for the insight!  I think we met once, but I can't remember ;)  Pull up a chair and have Stephan buy us a beer or three, will 'ya.... 8)

Thanks, bud! Yeah, we met a few times--once or twice before the Classics at Dairy Queen--uh, Nicks now I guess--and I was the one that identified the rear wheels on your old car as Dragmasters. I should actually spend some time around here as I'm finally starting to build my '62. But that's a topic for another post (don't want to hijack!).

Hi Chris,  How are you doing??  Never did hear from you regarding the wire wheel article I fed you some info on.  Did it ever get published?  Last time I saw you was at Nick's a couple of years ago. Give me a call sometime.  John Lazenby

Hey John, how goes it? You mean the article where I spelled your name wrong?  ;D Yep, it printed right after we talked--I thought that's how you saw the misspelling. I'll have my editor dig up a copy for you. You still want those EMPI rocker covers? They're yours...

Rick must have sold the car in 76 or 77 as my next door neighbor Jamie Lavold bought it.  Jamie did sell it off again by 78 or so.  He sold it and I never saw it again.  I remember seeing it on the streets when your guy Rick owned it, I would have been 14 or 15 and I thought that car was amazing.  I got to look at it every day for about 2 years, parked in the driveway next door.  I remember it as brown more than bronze.  Definately brown/rootbeer.  2 cents

    Hey Worm, your story is cool to know, where did you and your friend Jamie live back then? Rick lived at Katella & Brookhurst, his brother still does. Can you imagine buying a car like that for $1400.00 bucks?  Times have changed .                KG 

Well, he was'nt what I'd call a "friend", he was the much older kid that lived next door.  I basically admired the car from afar.  Not once did I ever even get to sit in it.  He was kind of a wienie.  Which inspired me to build a Cal Look car of my own that would make him a bit jealous.  Hence spending every penny and extra moment building a 56 that eventually got voted in to DKK.
We lived in Brea.

You know, at the time I knew the car was cool and different than all the other modified VW's I had seen, most knuckleheads were sporting flared rear fenders, tinted side windows and some awful version of Chevy wheels (Cragars etc..), and there was no hint of it being an iconic car.  It was just a cool looking car for the time frame.

Funny.

  ...."and there was no hint of it being an iconic car."

Back then, no one thought of their cars as becoming iconic... we were just screwing around.  I sold my '63 for $1500, Mark sold his for $1400, John Lazenby sold his cheap, too... no iconic features;
just the owners vision of what a hot-rodded VW meant to them.

Hey Chris, Good to see you on the board here. Will you be at SEMA again next month?

I'm going to go out there and redeem you guys for selling your cars for good dough.

So far nobody has factored in inflation. Minimum wage in '74 was $2 so you can assume that a 20-year-old kid made $3.50 an hour. The amount Thurber sold his car for in '74 is the equivalent of $6,400 dollars today.

Now bear in mind that was for an 11-year-old car. Don't stone me for saying this but that's the equivalent of getting $6,400 for a year-2000 Honda Civic that's all ricered up. You can get a beautiful one of those for $4,500...and that gets you air bags, air con, injection, full interior, five-speed tranny, and so forth. Our grandkids (well yours anyway--I don't have kids) will go bonkers collecting Sport Compact Car and Honda Tuner and they'll freak out and ask why you didn't buy all the 'old' '00 Civics when they were so cheap in 2011. :)

Thanks, Geoff. SEMA hires us to shoot all the new products so yep, I'll be there.

Man, I wish I could've shot your green buggy. You and your brother gotta go to the Swindlers poker run next year. This year was good. 

So back in around 78 when I bought the aronson/holmes 63 ragtop for $3500 and wages where around $ 7.00 an hour, I paid to much ? HA..My dad was not happy at all when he found out the price I paid. Years later sold it for $ 4000  to get into my 1972 911. Remember back then in dkp2, these where our only cars, very few of us had 2 cars. Each car we owned and sold was to move on to our next "gotta have" car. Great times to be a car guy in southern calif. Cheap gas, beach rentals, no haircuts, the good life was affordable. hmmm....DAM, shoulda bought a house instead... BACK to marks car, I remember the bitch'n dash being the most stick out point. Kieth, did rob gooden own it with brms ? or chrommies ?  bill

If my tomato soup for a brain can recall properly I definately remember my neighbor had the BRM's on it.  And that was after your guy I imagine. 

  Bill , as I stated above, Mark sold the car to Rick with chrome wheels with the hub cap area painted black, no caps. Prior to building my car I was thinking seriously about buying the Aronson-Holmes car from Jim Holmes, Mark Thurber talked to me about the fact that if I built a car of my own, the way I wanted every detail, then no matter what, it would always be considered " MY CAR" not someone elses old car , As I also stated above, Mark helped me in many ways , he encouraged me to think for myself, use my imagination , and do for myself, Mark Thurber was a very positive influence on me, again, thank you Mark Thurber,           KG

wow great memories! ive been reading this thread the 1st time everytime i come on,

just curious does anyone have any contact with mark still?

         Yes,  most every trip I make to so.cal, I make it a point to see him.

One of the better threads in quite some time.

There is a red CHP inspection sticker on Mark's windshield in the passenger front shot that Sarge posted. I wonder if this was a result of a fix-it ticket stop or something else? Can anyone shed some light on this?

My pleasure, dude!  Back in the '70's, the CHP would "host" safety checks on public highways.  You'd drive around a corner and there they'd be waiting to nail your ass for ANY small infraction.... one of which was being too low in front.  I remember a time when a friend gave me a "PASSED" sticker (what you saw in Mark's window) which I quickly installed on my windshield thinking I would finally be safe for a while.... hahahaha!  About a week later, I got caught in the dragnet... a huge red-faced CHP flagged me in to the check lane... he was yelling WHO GAVE YOU THAT GOD DAMNED STICKER over and over again.  Ah, the good old days! 8)

Good stuff, Sarge. I recognized the sticker because my dad's old f250 had a green one on the windshield forever. I will have to ask him what he got it for. He sold the truck to a buddy about 10 years ago and I bet that sticker is still there.

Anyway, back to Thurber's badass sedan.

    I simply love the term "host" Sarge used to describe the safety checks, cracked me up, I was always lucky to see them far enough ahead of time to evade them, this did not, however keep me from getting more than my share of tickets for everything you can think of, the only thing" wrong" with my car prior to building it into the choptop was  being lowered, so moving violations were" my thing "and the addition of the" lowered car"part of the ticket was simply icing on the cake, so to speak. After the transformation into the choptop took place, I did not mount a side mirror, license plates, (front or rear) and my front turn signals were the parking lights (early car) inside the headlight assembly, I still got moving violations from time to time, but for some reason, law enforcement cut me an enormous amount of breaks, and most of them ended up just talking to me about the car!!! how lucky is that? About 16 years later I finally got a little more realistic and mounted a rear plate and side mirror but could never bring myself to doing the (front plate thing), they are just so wrong,(should be a law against them)   ;D    Back on the topic of Mark Thurber's car , it had a select a drop installed, and after Rick bought it, we removed the bottom torsion bars, welded the ends and center set screw areas together to retain the proper shape, and cut portions out of the remaining areas. Doing this softened the ride quite a bit,(something select a drops are not known for) yet it still retained its adjustability , I know select a drops are not desirable to most people today , but this was the old days , and this is one of a few solutions to to the select a drops (stiff ride thing) I had one on my car and softened the ride a different way .   Sorry for rambling, just food for thought...      KG

Keith, you keep "rambling along" all that you like.
You've made history, and been around it as well, so your recollections suit me just fine. In fact, I look forward to more.
Steve

If I may be allowed to add to this. Some 40 years ago next month I had my 58' lowered by Greg Aronson at F & A (pre Thurber) with Keith during the dirty work. As Keith described, they used the "cut and weld" method, a messy and labor intensive procedure on link pin cars.  For all their work, I paid $35.00.
Lunch money now, but in 71'...half a days pay for a kid.

Years later while working at FAT (78'), we still did the cut and weld procedure as well as just pulling the half leaves on the ball joint cars. Marks 63' was long gone
by then, replaced by a 911 (?).   After all these years, I'm still impressed by his 63' with the engine turned brass dash.

Since we're adding... I took my '67 to FAT for the cut and weld in '78.

Pais a lot more than $35. I think it was $100 but I also think it included shocks.

Great thread!
 We know what Aronson drove, and Thurber, what about Ron Fleming? Did his oval ever graduate from "pre cal"?

Certainly, with an ever present smile as he/they performed the obligatory DKP burnouts entering the usual/monthly rally
registration point. As I remember it the transition from "pre to Cal" in DKP was pretty quick, but I'm not the insider here
and will defer to them.

But I do recall with clarity (forgive me Ron) a well lubricated Mr. Fleming standing on the table's leading the DKP club cheer
after that rally.  (I think the rally subject deserves it's own thread)

     If  memory serves me well, last time I saw it when Ron owned it , lowered front, no bumpers, no t-bars, total outlaw ;D , not dechromed , still had pea shooter holes and of coarse BRMs .      I know Speedwell (Fabs) has got to have a pic , and if we are nice to him, he might post one.       KG          

      Hey Phil, do you know any DRF guys that might have pics of Thurber's dash? or anyone else for that matter....   IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN...    KG

Sorry Keith, can't help you there. I'm sure someone has an old pic tucked away somewhere. I don't even remember what gauge combo he used,

just that engine turned brass dash and how well it looked with the met-brown paint. And Mark complaining how long it took to create it  :D


side note: Some painters back then added bronze powders to their paints.

Almost forgot, Ditto on Ron's car.

Try me...  ;)
(http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t318/Photokernow/DKP01.jpg)

    Hey Keith, you really are (fast)! truth is I did think about it, but after my big rambling speech in my last p.m. to you, I thought you might have had enough of my crap for a while and wanted to take a break  ;D  Great pic though, thanks, Ill have to try Mike O'Neill to see if he can obtain pics of Thurber's dash, and how the car looked when Rick owned it, I wouldn't have a clue how to find Rick, who bought Marks car, but O'Neill possibly can, we'll see.       Thanks, KG

And....... Rick was going to turn Ron's car into a fully-decked out A/MC race car at first.

That would be Rick Rockman, Dean... Rick Goodin bought Thurb's car according to KG.  Here's a pic that's been seen before but I'll add it here again.  Ron's car ran a potent 1700 and a Joe Hunt mag (not to mention a stock fuel pump :o :o ).  Back then, that mag scared a lot of potential competitors off! ;D 8)

keith here's mark's dash
(http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=17001.0;attach=55471;image)

Wrong guy.  All I remember is Jamie Lavold owning it .  It was probably after Goodin, maybe before, who the hell knows, it was so gdamn long ago and it didnt seem to matter at the time.  But I know for sure Jamie had it just before I got my license in August of 1977.   I also remember the DKP stickers were on it.  I can remember being so impressed by that logo and the fact that there was a car club for hopped up VW's.  Cool.

Sorry Worm,  I meant to say KG... too much retirement will do that to a guy ::) :D

That mag on Ron's car is the cat's ass.

For those of you who hadn't noticed or cared to ask, that's a degree collar on that mag. This one's off the Spalding Brothers' roadster. They developed and made twin-coil ignition later on but in the late '40s and early '50s they ran Vertex/Scintilla magnetos. They're not expensive and they turn up every now and then.

(http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z23/hotrodsurplus/Forum%20photos/IMG_9260-1000.jpg)

Forget chrome and billet stuff. Those are the details that turn a cool engine into an awesome one.

Yes, it is!

Truer words haven't been spoken here in a long time.   8)

Where's the pointer?

The guy who owns the engine now hasn't gone to the trouble to bend a coat hanger for it yet. ;)

      Hi Fabs , yes that is his dash, but its pre engine turned dash, The pic here is the, plexi guage and glovebox area, and stock stereo area. This was kind of a semi Aronson style. Another way I know this is that the engine turned dash was bright brass, not dark like the one pictured,  Im trying to track down pics then Ill have to ( pimp) someone to post them for me , because my tech abilities are still lame.    :(       KG

Right on!  It's also what it took to cruise around town daily with #70 idle jets... the size IDA's came with back then.
Most guys bought Webers and never gave much thought to fooling with jets and it didn't take long to foul a new set of 225T1 plugs. ;D

225T1 plugs! I remember those – you're showing your age!  :D :D :D

I shouldn't have a problem fouling plugs.  ;)

(http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z23/hotrodsurplus/Forum%20photos/IMG_0038-1000.jpg)

I've been hoarding collecting parts for my '62 sunroof for some time now. Gonna run the tach-drive one 'cause I'm going to run a Jones tach, noisy cable and all. Let the kiddies think their monster tachs are cool. ;D

 :o >:( why you little..... :D :D :D


So, your going with a twin spark plug set-up, eh.... SWEET!!! ;) :D

Oh man, could you imagine the poor brass distributor gear? Nah, just running the tach-drive one. It's locked out but the other one has a curve in it.

No Sarge,  he's converting it to diesel! :D

I should'a known... hahahaha!

225T1 Bosch plugs!!. Without a mag, 70 idles, and Berg manifolds, I used 175T1's and prayed I didn't foul a plug & puncture a manifold changing it.  ;D

Ooh...y'think i could run the fuel distributor off the cam drive?

Well it'll sort of have compression like a diesel!

      WHAT!!!!!!  Bosch no longer makes 175 or 225t1s ?  :o :o :o     When I woke up the world had changed....   ;D ;D ;D

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

  ....."225T1 Bosch plugs!!. Without a mag, 70 idles, and Berg manifolds, I used 175T1's and prayed I didn't foul a plug & puncture a manifold changing it." 

At one point, I remember trying some 240T1's with the Solex 40P11-4's I was running at the time.  Seemed like the thing to do as the 225's blistered the porcelain electrodes (always seemed to run lean at freeway speeds).  I think the 240's lasted a week. :(  Your punctured manifold observation reminded me of a loose intake manifold story from our sandrail days at Glamis.  I went around with a 12mm open-end wrench to snug things up not paying any attention to how the wrench "touched" the manifolds (which were paper thin) thus adding a few more "new" vacuum leaks.  sigh... live and learn!

Went out the garage and took a pic of these - NOS 225 W5A plugs from GBE "back in the day." 

Does that make me old too? :D

No, I think those are from the late 70's or early 80's. Good try though  ;)

Late-model plugs... Gotta say 'T1' at the end...

Jeez, look at us – plug snobs!  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Yep, they say "T1" at the end.

Old thread...but did anyone ever find out the paint code that Mark Thurber used on his old car? 

Sorry if this is off topic, or a bit random, but what kind of generator pulley cover is that? I like it.

Always loved this car after I first saw a pic of it in Keith's (Seume) book years ago.  The colour and stance were perfect.   I take it that the car has never been found?