The Cal-look Lounge

Hi guys,

Finally after 5 - 6 long years the project has almost reached the end.  

First a little more info about the car and myself.  8 years ago I turned 18 and got myself a vw rabbit/golf MK3.  I drove it for a couple of years but in the meantime I was looking for a project car.  I used to wrench many hours on my mopeds and I tought the time was ready to test my skills on a car.  My neighbour had a 1972 bug that he stripped completely and welded for 80%.  He was getting a bit tired with working on the car, so he decided to sell the car.  He also needed the money because he bought another house.  So, knowing not much of bugs I bought the car.  He told me he gave the bug an older look, pre 67.  I didn't know anything about the different models and thought it was ok.

First thing I did was putting the car in primer and my cousin did the finishing paint.  After it was painted I was discovering differences in different model years.  Then I discoverd my car had some "mistakes"  :-[   For example:  the longer bonnet, pre 67 head lights, ect...  but because I didn't know much about it I didn't remove the "ears" behind the quarter windows and the tank lid is still there....  Since it was already painted it was to late to fix these "issues"

OK, I know that I'm pretty stupid to "rebuild" a 72 to a pre 67 model, but like I said: My neighbour is the one to blame!  ;D  First I hated my car because it was "a little bit of something" but I learned to live with it and now I found peace with it.  I hope that some of you guys still like my car and not only judge it on the not completely time period correct look.

I started buying "volksworld" magazines and the first look that I liked very much was the resto look.  :-[  I wanted to give the car a slammed look with a roof rack but with a powerful engine...  Years went by and I bought  the bible written by Keith...  :P  

Many hours of reading went by and  I was totally hooked up with the california look, so I changed my plans.  The roof rack had to go and I needed a more powerful engine.  I sold the second hand 1914cc I had and started saving up for a hot 2 liter stroker engine with 48 IDA's...

The chosen colour is not really "true" california look and the car is also not dechromed but like I already mentioned, my first plan was to build a resto cal.

Many updates and stories to come with the "more recent" work in progress pictures, but for starters:  some old pictures I found on my old hard disk.  

I hope you enjoy it.

Ok, here we go.

Dem

one of the first pics how this basket case arrived

the back and a picture of a freaky mate of me...   ;D  ;D  ;D  It's not me!!

next stage: a fresh painted bug, ready to start building...
As you can see I was then in my "resto cal" fase...   ;D

Glad that's over...   :D

Just passed the MOT today.  So soon I will provide more pictures and tech. specs of my car.

Dem

OKAY, time for more Cal look progress.  Here are the first pictures of the engine in his test build up.

congrats!!

Thx!!  And I enjoyed my first real drive today bigtime.  I also nailed a renault Kangoo @ the red lights....   ;D  okay, not something to brag about but I'm one happy camper!   ;D  ;D

here is the engine on the dyno for his first startup.

the engine is a 2165cc, IDA's, CB heads done by Steve's VW shop.
The engine produced +/- 190 hp @ the dyno.

here are some pictures of the enginebay...

The engine looks promising!! Like the turned alu panels, did it yourself? Or did Steve do them?

I came up with the idea and told Steve made them.

That's a nice ride  :)
I saw it in steve's shop this summer, cool ride.
Have fun with it
Mycha

thx mycha...

More pics to follow, but I'm very busy with detailing and finishing the car...

here a few pics with the engine in the car.

I like it! The green and gold works really well with the turned panels!  :)

thx Neil!

Soon more pictures of the exterior and interior of the car...

nice. ireally like the backpanels, steve is really someone who has many tricks up his sleeve. that should come out nice. still beeting kangoo's or has it a bigger appetite now?  ;D

Right now I'm waiting for my license plates, I think I will receive them in january...   I see you have started your stroker project?

Dem

very nice engine

thx!!

Got my license plate today, so soon new pictures of the car, the interior etc  how it looks now.  more cal-look, less resto-cal  ;D  ;D

dont you have a video yet? :)

no, not yet, I will get my canon running one of these days and show my spielberg tricks  ;D

Dem

It's about time a real car is cruising the streets of downtown stekene  ;D
it will be great hearing that car scream @ de cramme  ;)

Any progress on the car?
PICTURES please.

Progress yes!  pictures: no!   ;D
Soon pictures will follow.  I'm having some dilemmas:  the sidetrim is bugging me...  Don't know exactly what to do with it...  paint the sidetrim, leave it chrome...  install black window-rubbers or not, etc...  I need to start a poll here...  ;D

paint the trim body color and put black cal look rubber my 2 cents  lol ;D ;D

i'm gonna go with what shubee suggested.
i just need to find a darn 67 hood trim  :o >:(

I would also replace the window rubbers with callook rubbers, still not sure about the trim do, never seen that before, it it's not a bad idea ;)

oh and about the cal-look rubbers; there's quite a few different ones around. are the any good makes around? i don't want them to dry out after 2 years.

can i just go with these? (http://www.vwparts.net/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=111898121J&Store_Code=VWP&search=cal-look+rubber&offset=&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=&range_low=&range_high=)

If you've got a picture of the car as it sits now, that might help...  ;)
I think it's one of those colours which needs the chrome to break up the green. You could try blacked out trim? :)

Diederick, I might have one... will check for it this weekend...
Jelle

Okay,

here is a picure, still in the works a few months ago.  I think I made up my mind:  leave the sidetrim, but remove the chrome in the windowrubbers...  I'm not sure what I should do with the pop outs...  paint it black or leave it...  oh, and the fuchs will get the well known treatment: black and polished.

What are your ideas guys?

Dem

seeing the color again, I think what you explained yesterday will indeed look best, just place the callookrubbers and stick with the chrome sidetrim, wil look great IMHO
glauco

All chrome or no chrome. If you leave the side trim, leave the window trim as well. I see you have the early wide running board chrome- Id replace that with the later thin stuff.

Looking good ;)

I thougt about that too, but unfortunatly there is no way back...  I redrilled the holes to fit the earlier model of sidetrim, so the smaller sidetrim aren't going to cover the "bigger holes"...
ah damn, me and my f*ck*ng resto cal period back in the days...  ;D     But, no worry, head's up!  We are going to make the best of it, trust me!  8)

hi jelle,
please do let me know  :)

the weather this weekend was a blast here in Belgium.  So I took the car out for a spin yesterday for the very first time.  Took a picture, so here it is...  Still need to do some minor detail stuff and paint my fuchs, but most of the work is done!  I got so exited that I blew my dynamo belt off...  ;D  ;D

the car realy looks great, and souds great too, scared the hell out of me when you drove in my street ;D

by the looks of it allready a chickmagnet, or did you pay them to be in the picture  ;)

 ;D  ;D  naa, I did not pay them, but it is a magnet indeed...  8)  :D

good for you.  ;D

just make sure ellen isn't around when the chicks come running, or she'll go kungfu on all of them, and on you  ;D

I believe this one needed an upper! Oh and do not refrain from posting some newer imagery to suit the article for my planned but never to be released mini-mag. For another instalment, check this thread: http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,17336.msg250436.html#msg250436 (http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,17336.msg250436.html#msg250436).

Dem! What a Freak.

For a lot of us, buying that first VW was a mistake, not because the ridiculous amount of money we would spend on a hobby revolving around the modern times dinosaurs from that day forward, but rather because we failed in buying the right car.

At first all beetles look alike, why, even when you pick up on quirky details like the big tail lights of a super beetle, you only think about your mum telling you to be safe and you go ahead and consider this a unique selling point. If you’re lucky you can get the experienced feedback of an expert that will tell you that the most wanted beetles are the ones which have split windows in the front (sic) and that motivation better comes from a Porsjhah engine (sic again) lest you want to make some speed.

After buying the wrong car there are usually three options:

1: You never learn and treat your monstrosity as a god gift and, ridiculed by all with a bit of taste and common sense, you soldier on.
2: You learn very fast you’re being ridiculed and sell the car never to look back to that slow, gas guzzling tin of death and buy a sensible family car.
3: You learn and live, meaning you sell your faux pas to the next nitwit newbie and upgrade to a more desirable money pit.

Somewhere in the limbo between those options lies what happened to Dem De Bruyn from Stekene, Belgium. He fell in the trap of buying a young car at the time when Late Lookers were all but in fashion. He then proceeded to make it worse by ageing his car to a pre-66 car, but cutting short on the welding, not erasing the tell tale signs that make his car stand out like a Steven Segal in a sea of Bruce Lee’s: the “croissants” behind the rear quarter windows and the fuel filler flap. After seven long years he did learn his lesson and combined option 2 and 3 into buying a very nice 1963 1500S, more desirable for sure, yet at the same time the perfect family car.

The twist is he has kept the proof of his Original Sin. And in all honesty, Dem has every reason to do so. The car’s a beaut! Originally being a marathon blue ‘72 car in reasonable condition. He proceeded to strip the car completely and when in bare metal he had the aprons replaced so he could run the older front and rear deck lids. The trim holes were kept to sport early fat trim and the body was prepped for a few layers of a Maserati metallic green, a very short-lived escapade into Resto Cal almost to the point of mounting a roofrack.

Almost from the get go it was clear this was going to be a Cal Look car and Cal Look cars need power. And after a costly mishap with a built-by paperweight, an order was made at Steve’s VW shop for a big HP 2179cc engine breathing through a pair of IDA48. Pretty soon the gearbox was to be destroyed during a test run and it was beefed up a notch, but clearly not enough. Just recently, showing off has stripped some of the gears of their teeth and now the rebuilt gearbox has welded gears and a superdiff. Front to back all mechanical parts have painstakingly been cleaned and adjusted to perfection or upgraded. Condition of the engine is monitored through a dash full of VDO Cockpit gauges, complete with trip speedometer.

Slowly this one-car-garage built Looker was entering the show and shine realms. It was in dire need of some essential parts to give it that extra flair. Like the polished Flat Four Fuchs, detailed in semi gloss black by DWS. Special attention needs to go to the replica center caps which had the Proche logo’s machined out to be replaced by the correct full colour Porsche shields, by hand! Then there is the custom diamond stitched full interior with Ompi bucket seats, door panels and luggage tray, some of which were upholstered by Dem’s Mum.

Selling it with a loss or putting even more money in it, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Caving in to peer pressure and the hard scrutinizing of his Frankencar, Dem was forced to acquire an incredible eye for detail. Black Empi GTV steering wheel, covered in Empi leatherette cover, blacked out chrome all around, flat headlight lenses in front of the detailed buckets, working eight-track (on top linked to an Ipod for easier listening), padded dash, and the list goes on and on … And he keeps on adding to it, in true Doctor Detail fashion Dem makes sure that every year he has perfected yet another part of the car. All of this while he will never be able to fix that very first and crucial mistake: he bought the wrong car. The sad thing is even though this is the perfect Cal Look car (except for never having seen an inch of a dragstrip), people will keep on frowning upon this freak. Weird.

Thanks to: idee man pakt "MiderTechnics", "Berto" en "DiDi #5" voor de uitgevoerde werkzaamheden
en ellen en mijn ouders voor de mentale steun tijdens de mentale slooptocht van toch wel 6 a 7 jaar...

oh boy what a story.  :-[
I almost forgot about this topic, the car sure has developed in the right direction if you ask me, oh and a minor detail: I took it to the strip last year!  :P

thx buddy

proof!  ;)

and the last one from mister speedwell!

and the last one from mister speedwell!