The Cal-look Lounge

And what the heck is a Cal-look-a-like? Is that a post-order car or something completely different?

I supose they are refering to it as if its only a look you get in Cali usa, so they have a built a car that looks like it was from cali?

 Who exactly are "they"?

If everything is cal-look, than.......it might be the true cal-looker of the late 70's with 48IDA and the attitude of the young punk owner written all over it!!! 8)

The Real Cal Look Cars all had A Motor to Back Up The Look  The Old Cal Looks Were all in Differnt Stages Of Being Completed in most Cases The Motor  and Tran's Came First, then a Shifter,Wheels, Gauges,Steering Wheel, Paint and Body then The Last Thing Was the Interior In The 70's you might of had a Primered Beater pull up next to you at a Light with a Dumped Front End and A Nice Rumble Coming from the Engine Compartment you look over at the Guy in the Bug and kind of Laugh then the Light Turns Green and you find yourself about ten car's behind that old VW Bug  I Can Relate to This Because I Had A Bug Just Like What We Are Talking About, Dropped Front Tee Bars Primered and Chromies with no Hubcaps And A IDA Motor that was Street Driven and Ran Mid 13's On The Street.

I think your talking about a 'poser. All looks no go. However, I don't think you have to have a 2 liter or 12 sec time slip to be considered Cal-look. (Seems we have had this conversation before.) Just an engine that is modified/tuned for performance. While I wasn't there I seem to have read that a lot of the early lookers ran smallish engines with a custom exhaust, 010/019 dizzy & either a stock carb with the jets drilled bigger or a set of larger carbs. Maybe had the heads flycut for better compression, etc. What we would consider a string daily driver now but with much higher compression.

--louis

THAT IS POETRY!!!!!!!! MADE MY DAY!!!!!! HAPPINESS IS A HOT VW!!!!!I LOVE PRIMER BUT I DON'T DARE TO PAINT MY CAR DUE TO ALL EXPERTS TELLING IT IS NOT CAL-LOOK......BESIDES, IT HAS TYPE 4 MOTOR TOO!!!!!

a cal look alike...


... a car that looks like a cal looker (dechromed, empi 5's etc) but hasn't got a hot motor...

 I guess this makes me a Cal-look-a-like owner then...

(Though I hope to replace my 1200 with a more powerful engine in the near future. But at the moment there are more important things that need $$.)

I don't really care anymore if my car is a true callook or not;
with my megasquirted type 4 that i had, fake empi 5's, in the future 165 /65 in the front, all trim, bumpers,
i just say that its cal look inspired: clean (mm not yet), simple, hopefully soon fast :)
just a subtile car that will blow away the ricers; or old farts in their shiney Merc's  ;D

cheers, P.

Sorry...But I have to say/ask something.............
Who of us is a true "Cal-Look" bozo and who are "Cal-Look-A-Like"s'''
There are those who of us who have watched, been inspired, AND innovated.
Some seem to think that $$$$ put their footprints in the "Cal-Look" walk-of-fame.
I SAY NO!
If you subscribe to Cal-Look culture, do this:
Read and study the past(old mags say alot).
......  Live and Love!
........   We are all "Cal-Look-A-Likes"
...........   Some, however, have been blessed with years of deep committment
             to living and loving the Cal-Look scene.....

Regards,

justanothercallookalike
               

I look at this like the new age "punk rockers" If you didn't grow up in the 70s and 80s, have one or both parents addicted to drugs or alcohol, have behavior problems most of your school days, at one time or another have a drug or alcohol problem yourself, general hatred towards authority and conformity, if you have an allowance from your still married parents and you go to the mall to buy your punk wear from Hot Topic or Spencer's, listen to Green Day or the new Misfits (gag) you are as punk as Brittany Spears.

The real deal= Dash plaques from 70s and 80s Bug-Ins that you attended. You still own the same car that has slowly and methodically evolved from a stocker to a 12-13 second driver without refinancing your house, cashing out your 401(k) or selling you kidneys. Your buddy painted the car in his garage or carport, you ported the heads yourself as well as building the whole engine, your wife or girlfriend did the interior, Remember less is more in the true form of Cal-Look, it is not about what cool shit you bought off ebay for 75 times what it cost new 30 years ago. It takes some thought and engineering to get the right look, money and taste rarely go hand in hand. The finest example of Cal Look is Sarge's 67, and Dave Rhoads 64.

Look-alike= You bought the car off eBay, The Samba or paid someone to build it for way too much money, has dash plaques from Bug Ins that you never attended, and you've never been to California or were before you were born.  Paint by Buddy Hale, Tim Tesnow t-bars, CNC wedgeports, Sil Modesti breather, $200 Chinese cranks, Berg 5 speed, Berg rapid travel locker, Autometer monster tach, Full MSD ignition, A1 muffler, Erco's, FF BRMs with DOT M&H's or other wheels nobody liked in the 60s and 70s, IDAs by ACE with JayCee stacks, Flat 4 wood or Petri steering wheel, Hurst Line Loc, the full Empi garbage(trinket) package, A+ poser status fo sho. It is fine to have 1 or 2 of these things but if you have most, you are pushing the poser- I mean look alike looker.

Dammit its not my fault I was born 30 years too late!!!  >:(  ;)

as much as i agree with you, i don't think that dave rhoads car is cheap. real BRM's, engine, even 48IDA cost little less than an arm and a leg. i remember at Menton (i think i was 5 years ago) when i first saw the 'new' IDA's selling for 2000 euros a pair. everybody said it was mad. over the last years i have seen a lot of madpeople running IDA's

it costs a lot to have a cal-look beetle. but that should not compromise style and personal taste.

if you want something that is in the real spirit of the cal-look of the seventies. try buying a 5 to 10 yearold car and make it as fast as your budget can afford with all the new tricks. that looks like a tuned honda to me nowadays... so i guess a lot of us are willing to pay a lot for the tricks and fads of yesteryear...

I think you have a pretty good take on it! But us young (don't laugh) guys of today, want to have the same style and ideally, cars, as the boys back then. That means we fit T bars even if there is no law making us. We are fitting IDAs while knowing there are other ways to reach HP nirvana... and while the early boys bought the VWs because they were cheap, we buy them even if they are expensive AND rusty.
In this respect we would all be "look-alikes"

About the parts, you might be right... but some of these really are the best choice, while others easily could be swapped for something a little less generic
IMHO

 ??? ??? ???

I've read this whole thread trying to figure out if I'm Cal-Look or Cal-Look-A-Like

 ;D ;D ;D

A LOOK A Like Rick LMAO ;D ;D ;D

Thanks Pal!  ;)

You know how it is Jim. I gotta be the Little Red Rooster, keeping everything upset in every way ;D

“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
                            Douglas Bader

wow dude...the greatest quote ever on the forum!

my grandfather was in Stalag Sagan in WW2 with the Douglas Bader....grandad Russell had some crazy-ass tales to tell about the war!

This sounds like cars with a distinct identity.... were these cars bulit after a spesific car in a magazine?

In short; breaking the cal-look MOULD, but still keeping with the doctrine makes it a CAL-LOOK...  If you just pour cash into the MOULD.... you get a look-a-like

Just my 0,02 NKR

I think the look we had was Nor-Cal/Livermore Valley look and not Orange County look. What really amazes me is we all had the same style of car independent of one another. Most of our cars had evolved pretty much the same before we met each other. I think all of us were heavily influenced by Porsches, Ferraris and other vintage sports cars as well as the DKP/So Cal pre Cal-look cars (Dave Dolan's 67, Don Crane's 67, Sarge's 63, Jim Kurlinski's 67, etc) and the Bill Fisher book. My car today still fits in with our club look in the early/mid 90s-big Weber IDA engine with dual quiet packs, Chrome 356 wheels with no caps, VDO Series 1 gauges, stock body trim, full US bumpers, propped decklid, 356 pulley nut and power pulley, dropped front end. Looks always came second to performance to most of us in the club. We didn't feel the pressure to fit in like the cars (people) today. We did our own thing. I don't think a single one of us ran a tire smaller than a 165 on the front.

Wow, I'm a fuckin' poser!  Getting a little too Callook forumy for me.

I HAVE to disagree with that. What's wrong with buying a complete car? Are you saying Russel's top chop is not Cal-Look?  ::)
If I had enough money, I would certainly build myself a complete, finished car. I mean, it actually sucks having to wait years before you can afford a pair of carbs or a nice crank.
The only thing I agree with is that a lot of cars today look 'too much'... They have lost the simplicity and purity that made the original cal-lookers so beautiful.

imo Cal Look has evolved, pretty much like this...  :D

(http://lifewithalacrity.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/evolution.jpg)

Now that is what I'm talking about. That completely sums up my feelings.

I actually love the look of your car. It is subtle, subdued, not to cluttered with "Cal-look" add ons and looks classy.

Watch out, Eric The Red is going to pushing politics down our throats pretty soon.

Not illegal immigration and those damn Dem's!

I'm going to do a little back peddling here. After thinking about this......Buddy Hale, Ercos, M&H, Tim Tesnow are the equivalent modern day  to Becker's, Deano's, Blue Streaks etc, I guess it's all relevant to your time.

Well...

I'm probably not the most proper person to make any statment, as though I'm in the process of turning a 1302 into a late looker (low buget by the way).

You can say, that I'm a poser, cause my car is not a pre68, does not have a classic cal wheels - no BRMs or Fuchs, just a set of late cookie cutters, and all of them are 7inch wide. BUT It has the biggest, double carbed engine I could afford at the moment (1914cc, 40x37.5,C-35, 40Dells, 1 5/8 merged&SQP) no bumpers, rake, U know...
Someone here said, that real cal-lookers back then were most of the time somewhere "in the pocess".
For me, the most important thing is the proper attitude. All this stuff in the car are sometimes a matter of accident, a 'find' for cheap price, or something.
The real BRMs in the 70s weren't a popular 'off the shelf' item - they were a 'find'.
I bought the cookies, cause sourcing a set of proper Fuchs wheels in Poland is very hard and very expensive.
Starving for a couple of months, just to be able to afford a real IDAs, or things kinda like that is not my style.
Did U, the real Cal-look guys from back then sacrifice so much to be able to afford some 'proper' items to your cars? Like did You wander if buing a $5 burger at the nite cruise brake at local Diner would ruin your plans for new carbs?
I don't thik so. Most of these parts was cheap in California of the 70ties. Am I wrong?

BRM's in the 70's  were a lot easier to get then now day's  we Sold Them Brand New at Auto Haus in the mid 70's $49.95 Each things were cheaper in the 70's But  We made half the money we make today Except for Sarge and Jim They both have very Deep Pockets LMAO ;D ;D ;D