The Cal-look Lounge

Don't know if this belongs here or not but tought maybe it might be of interest to some of you guys.  In 1972, after screwing around at my insurance"job", I took my first "real" job at a VW dealership (Renfree VW) as a parts tech.  I figured since I was in a VW club that it would be "no problem" selling VW parts.  Well, I started my day at the mechanics counter with a Frenchman named Pierre who had a Type III automatic trans in a million pieces.  I soon discovered I knew absolutly nothing...so did Pierre.  I lasted about eight months before bailing.  My next stop was at Sierra Porsche Audi in Riverside in parts again with long-time friend Harvey Weidman.  Working in Riverside brought me in contact with a whole new bunch of aquaintances.  One of the first was Darrell Vittone who ran the dyno at Econo Motors at the time and had just purchased a 1972 911-S.  It was a four mile drive to Econo and we had many lunch hour cruises together in either my Datsun Pick-up, Darrell's '56 bug, or the 911.  Sometimes we'd be joined by DV's  friend Carl "Grub" Robinson.  Grub and I soon became best of friends....my wife and I spent a lot of our weekends hanging at his "compound" in Highgrove (aptly named The Highgrove Gypsie Camp).  Grub's beautiful camo Ghia took us on many orange grove "tours" back in the day.  For helping DV with parts for his 911, I was given an engine for my Datsun truck that had been built for a customers 510 track car but was never picked up and had been around The Race Shop for a year or two.  Fumio did the head, Racer Brown cam, 2000 Roadster clutch and flywheel, dual Solex Mikuni carbs, and Badger high compression pistons...just what the Doc ordered!  A couple of pics...    More later.

Sarge,

Thanks for sharing !!!   :)   Great pictures !!!

Cool story.

--louis

Who is the skinny dude in the top picture  :o

are those manifold were made by empi  ???

 ::) who wants to know??  ;D


No...All the performance stuff was sold through the Datsun SSS racing catalog / dealership.  Those were the days!

Love that truck!
Satoshi would love it too ;-)

 ;D

Sarge can you post that pic of the Sierra Porsche parts getter bus and all the Carrera alloys? And you and the long hair?  ;D

Awesome post dude.

Cool story Sarge,
 I also had a Datsun p/u and a 1800 Roadster, fun cars to own..BTW: Do you still live by the words on the rear license plate on the Ghia. ;D

This is so great, sometimes the lounge is just like reading in KS bible... but on here, new pages keeps popping up!!
Fantastic stories Sarge!

Gonna have to be in next week's installment, Jim...I think I know what pile it's in  ::) ;D


Who ME??  ;)


Thanks for the nice compliment!  Fun trying to remember how it all went down sometimes...

Aye, I agree. So much history on this site. Now we just need some of the other members to open up and tell some stories.

--louis

In the five years I spent working in Riverside at the dealership, Darrell was responsible for my getting to meet a lot of interesting characters.  One was Chas Morse.  Darrell grew tired of Econo Motors and finally pulled out to start Techtonics (stuff for water cooled VW's).  His shop was in a small complex with Richard McPeek (the pen striping on the Datsun truck was done at Richard's shop) and, sandwiched in between, was Chas' metal fabrication shop.  I'm pretty sure Chas was responsible for building some of the very first meged collector VW exhaust systems.  Chas was a real artist at metal fab and a pleasure to spend time with...always working on cool stuff, too.  When I was building my first sandrail, it was Chas that built the carb linkage, the breather box and a unique flat collector exhaust system.  The price was always right and you could always count on hearing some good stories while he was building your stuff.  Sadly, Chas passed away from spinal cancer sometime in the '80's at a relativly young age.

Love the pic of the KG with the John Muir-esque shade tree guy with it...

you can almost smell the dust and hear The Marshall Tucker Band playing from a transistor radio in the background.

I was born too late.

See the big "W" in the background?  Sharon and I spent more then a few weekends "camped" inside.  :o ;D

Love the Plate Frame in the Picture of the Ghia Sarge Right out of the 70's LOL ;D ;D

"DON'T COME A KNOCKIN' IF THIS MOTOR HOME IS A ROCKIN'"  :o ;)

You got any pics? Sheep does  :o

Sarge, I got that photo of you and Havey on my art table at work. I also have some photos of your Ford truck as well!

here's  a new pictures from SARGE
nice bay window with cool paint scheme , 7"fuschs maybe news at the time ; watch there's some cool  porsche box in the bus  8)

cool pic!

just one off-topic question, do 7" fuchs fit under the rear wings on long axles? just wondering.

Compared to my short stint at Renfree VW, working with Harvey Weidman at Sierra Porsche Audi was quite an experience.  I'd known Harvey from High School and his older brother Al had taught me to swim many years before.  Before Harvey became Parts Mgr at Sierra, he spent a number of years working at Paint by Molly in La Habra (Molly did the paint on Vittone's Inch Pincher Too).  It was Harvey's influence (as well as his brother's) that got me interested in building a sandrail.  I remember that first trip to the dunes before I'd built a car and being "hooked."  The "group"  at the dunes included Don Bradford (Brad's Upholstery), Dean Kirsten, Mike Martin (Mike sold me the red 1965 Ford Pickup in the "Off Road thread...his wife, Julie bought Dean's blue '67 bug) as well as Harvey's brother Al and Al Noriega (my old boss from Renfree).

The Porsche parts business was strong back in the mid '70's.  Along with all the normal stuff we used to sell, Harvey got involved with buying direct from Stuttgart.  We imported hundreds of alloy's back then...7X15, 8X15, 9X15, and 11X15.  Lots of turbo and Carrera weld on flairs, too.  When Vittone was building his '72 911-S, we got him some factory Recarro seats along with a limited slip diff, short ratio ring and pinion and a set of "airport" gears.  Definatly the good old days!

Thanks for posting that pic, Fabs!  I'm the skinny guy on the left...Harvey's on the right.  Deano snapped the pic.  The shop truck had a Molly paint job, too!

cool one my friend  :o love that panel van with molly paint jpb , do you remember the color of the bus ???
rgd
fabs

Chartruse green, dark blue and some others I can't remember for some reason... ::) ;)

Same Weidman that restores alloys up in Oroville CA?

He had a display booth at the Porsche fest in Ventura last summer. We used to send him business when I worked @ BH.

thanks buddy

Yeah, same guy.  When Al moved to Northern California, he sold his business in SoCal to Al Reed.

Nope!

Great pic Sarge, keep 'em coming! :)

Yes, Harvey still has the wheel resto business in Oroville, while his older brother Al, has retired, sold his (second) polishing business, which was based just down the street from Harvey.

Harvey once built a sand buggy trailer using the stop sign post from the corner of his street. Living only two doors down from that intersection (Palm and Whittier Blvd.), he figured no one would ever notice that the stop sign was no longer there, and only a stub was left in the ground.

I remember shooting that photo of Sarge and Harvey, which would be about 1978. Hot VWs never ran the story (those rat bastards), so after all these years, the photo comes in handy to haunt Sarge once again.

What kind of wheels are on the baywindow? Look a bit lite slotmags, but not quite?

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Chartruse green, dark blue and some others I can't remember for some reason... ::) ;)
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i don't no why sarge but in my mind  I thought that the bus was of this color, I think that this one would have indeed been to him too  ;D
and maybe a trailer behind the panel van with that 914  8)

Those are Jackman wheels we had chrome plated.  Jackman's were a popular off-road wheel at the time...most were painted white.

When I started at Sierra in early 1973, I had the Datsun truck as well as our '69 sedan we bought new at Don Burns VW when I got home from the Army.  The Datsun replaced my '63 club car.  The '69, we used for traveling and the wife used for commuting back and forth to work.  I had little interest back then in the '69 until the fall of 1973 when Porsche debuted the 1974 models and Harvey suggested I "Porsche-ize" the car with some black trim (the new Carreras came with black trim).  Back then, we did loads of wheel swap up-grades and I was able to snag a set of Mahle 914 alloys take-offs for $25 each.  VW had a number of special edition cars at the time (Sun Bug, Jeans Bug, etc) that came from the factory with black trim...so I set about ordering all the pieces from Volkswagen.  As for the engine, I built a 1776 with Engle 110 and 041 cylinder heads...the first Kadron kits were just coming out, so I got a set of those to try.  The suspension recieved a new front beam with adjusters, a full set of Koni shocks and 3/4" Sway-A-Way bars front and rear.  The tires were 185/70 rear and 195/60 front Pirelli Centeratos.  Needless to say, this car handled great and made for an awesome road car for many years taking us all over California, Oregon and Arizona.  It was a fun time back then... 8)

What a very nice car, love this late lookers.... :)

jim on the 2 & 3 pictures you had the dkp stickers on windows and  on the first when you add black bumpers , black trims  and baby gazburner , where are the stickers??? it's around 73 you said ,dkp did'nt exist any more ???

Thanks, Dirk!


You are correct, Fabs...no more DKP, no more stickers...but still a desire for VW's!  ;)  Thanks again for helping an old guy with his pictures, too!  ;D

;)

Time to revive this awesome post  ;D

Blue 69 on mahles is looking really cool, really subtle. I like it!

Thanks Jim and Roland...will have a little more tomorrow.  ;)

Sarge,
I'm certain that I used to see that late model car with the porsche rims and blacked out trim sitting out front of Beckers in Orange.  What was it, Lincoln and Glassel?  Man, its been a long time...  I always liked that car! 8)

The Best Part Is the CN36 Tires Sarge ;D ;D

Thanks for the props, David...yeah, for a time I worked next door to Becker's...first, for Scott's Porsche, then Steve's Independent.  Your right, Lincoln and Glassell it is!

Speaking of Riverside...... So's how come there wasn't a huge high performance VW club based in Riverside in the late '60s and early '70s? With the real Empi, and then The Race Shop, Lee Leighton, the Fum' and others in the 'hood, you would think that a lot of very fast street cars would be risen from the 'side... It would seem that a lot of the early performance street guys were mostly in Orange County, down the road a piece....

   I remember my first time to Econo Motors in 1970. I was looking at Joe's 50 split window in the show room and was amazed to see and old VW as nice as this one. Than I was checking the parts room with all of the Empi stuff everywhere. Than walked in the back of the dealer where Darrell had his shop. Which we could turn the clock back only for a day ( Time Tunnel ) and bring a truck load of parts back.

  Thanks
   Frenchy

I spent four years working in Riverside and never saw much of anything performance street car or club wise.  Good point.  The area was definetly a hot bed for performance though...Ed Eckles, Bob Godfrey, Dave Andrews, Jim Myers, John Rue, Mark Reeder and Mike Leighton (Lee's son) were all guys that called the dealership one time or another.

Cool stuff Sarge.  I drank a few beers with Harvey, Scott Henry, Grago and one of the Hayden Bros a few weeks back at the Rennsport Reunion.  Oddly enough, your name came up.  ;)

Hmmm....hopefully nothing ugly??  ::) ;)

Soooo, what ever became of the blue '69 sedan (I know your all sitting on the edge of your chairs  ::))?  Well, the wife and I drove the wheels off of it.  Took it on lots of vacations all over California.  The first pic was shot on the dirt road into Bodie ( a ghost town off Hwy 395 near Mono Lake).  The second shot was when the small soft plug fell out of the lower float bowl on the 44IDF's I was running at the time....draining gas all over a hot engine YIKES!!  This was on Hwy 1 north of San Francisco out in the middle of nowhere.  The last two shots happened about this time of the year in 1992 out in front of the house one night.  Two drunks in a Chevy truck lost control (on a residential street, mind you) and plowed into the car.  Lucky we weren't in it.  The brake was set and in gear...you can see by the skids how far they pushed it down the street.  Sad day...almost like losing a member of the family.

Doesn't look all that bad until you see the engine shot.   :o

The right rear tire was half out of the fender well.  The bumper of the truck hit the end of the Okrasa crank right on the nose.  The insurance company said I could have the car and $1700.00 or $2600.00 and no car...I took the $2600.  i did get some "stuff" before the tow truck showed up and drug it away the next day.  ;)

Damn stupid drunks!  >:( the car was on ida's when it got crashed if i see correctly.. did you go on vacations with the ida? ;D

Good eye Roland!  No vacations on IDA's...you never know when a nice dirt road might pop up.  ;D

Ah, Sarge that would have buffed out.... You should have called Dyno, he would have got it lookin' good again.

damm :o those guys were assh..e  >:(  , destroy a car like that one  :'(

Seeing an engine pic like that hurts. And I really mean it!!!  :-[  :'(

watch the pulley  :o

You got that right!  Too bad I didn't get a shot of the cops handcuffing the drunks and loading them in the back of the squad car... ;)


A nice Santana, too Fabs  :'(

Fab it look at the pulley.  :P :D

At least it looks like you were able to save that Bosch blue coil...    :P

At least I got that goin' for me... ::) ;D

something like this Sarge ??

 :o Nice photo-shop work, Fabs... that's pretty close!  It was a treat getting to see DV, the Schleys, KS and Dave Andrews at the Bug-In a few weeks ago... who'da
thunk it? ;D

Hey sarge, if I'd known you were taking a photo of me, I'd have smiled!  ;D

I'll be sending you a bill for breaking my camera.... sheeeeesh! ;D

Instamatics are getting hard to replace these days !
 ;D

What a stroke of luck I had a couple of weeks ago when I found this forum.  You guys really know how to kindle the old memories.  Now you have got me looking for my old pictures.  I assume you "Sarge" have seem the VCR Deano has of the dune buggy days.  Trouble is I still picture you as you are in the pics.  I'm going to have to make a So. Cal. run again soon and meet up at the Schleys.  Big Al.

 

 :o :o :o Holy CRAP... just when you think you've seen it all!!  Welcome to The Lounge, Al ;D  I don't think a day passes that a sandrail dream from the old days
flips through my mind.  I'll always remember you as the "lucky" guy who tried to teach me to swim when I was seven or eight years old (whenever THAT was!) ;)
Best to you!

Love that shot dude......

I still have a few old sand-rail pictures you sent me a couple of years ago  ;) :)

Really old thread but I have to ask, Was the Sierra Porsche bus painted by Molly or McPeak? I have seen both quoted in the past or did one do paint and the other lettering?

.

answer is here  ;)

I have always thought it was Molly but hot vws magazine said it was Mcpeak on a Facebook post from a couple of years ago.