The Cal-look Lounge

most of the owners and people interested in cal look are getting older<by looks> are there many young bloods coming through the ranks? alot of pics ive seen lately at bug in and different show pics on the net its the same faces.ive been into vdubs and lookers for the past 20 years and maybe longer and im 35 just wondered what the rest of you think? could we still be alive and kicking in another 20 years.

funny my mom asked me this same question yesterday. She saw pics from Bug In 33 and the channel 5 thing and wondered if most guys into Cal Look thing are "her" age (60-ish)  ;D

Here's my take...

Younger guys (I am 37), like 20-somethings, of today are all about street-cred, and what was once cool in the 1970's and 1980's (hot rod VW) isn't the cool thing today. When I was a teenager, there were throngs of guys my age at the VW events that had little minds like sponges, soaked up the vibe, there were cars for miles and miles at the North Calif shows, I can imagine the events in South. Calif. were a million times more so... anyway, up north, the mini truck thing came and went, then the import-compact Japanese scene took off and has stayed put, and now younger "car guys" are even turned on by the BMW 3-series, 5-series, Mercedes C- and E-class, water cooled VW's, etc. These cars "get the chicks" it appears with the sat nav, xm radio, 22"+ wheels, etc. A nicely done hot-rodded VW doesn't do it for this crowd, they "don't get it".... it is obvious. There are a few "car guys" here at my work, and it is clear they don't "get it" when it comes to a big cc VW with Weber 48's and a few rare things hung on it. They just know it makes a ton of noise and that the guy that owns it (me) is weird. They are more interested in drifitng or whatever else the new thing is. I think if a 24 year old guy had his heart set on just now getting into fast VW's for the street, he'd probably feel like an outcast among his peers, imagine him taking a date out in his 2276cc 48IDA ass kicker with Holley pump, and 90/10 shocks....compared to the last dude that took her out in his BMW M3... uh...  yeah.
For guys "my" age, we still play with these and talk about these cars because it reminds us (me at least) of being 19-20-21-22....years old and caring nothing about much else besides blowing away V8's in my Bug on Friday nights. It is amazing how much energy we had when we were young, I look back at some of the stunts my friends and I pulled and we're lucky to be alive and not in the can. So keeping on with the VW thing lets me hang on to that "high" if you will....
 ;D

ps: good topic....  5 gold stars...

We have to do like the hot rodders and bring in the youngsters. I think that handing a F&F ride it's butt with a VW will win some converts.

I could not have said it better Mr. Ratto.

Visibility is the key. How often do you see a hot rodded VW rolling down the streets? The other problem is that VW people like to hang out with other VW people, and don't usually reach out to other car groups. Add to that the fact that Cal-look is such a small part of a very small car hobby sub-culture. You also have the dickheads on some of the forums that browbeat anyone who is stupid enough to ask a noobish question. Like it or not, we are all ambassadors of our hobby. It is one of the reasons I want to take my car to the open street drag nights at my local tracks when it is done.

--louis.

 :o  Ratto for President!!!  ;D

NOOOOOOO He'd have to appease the the Last & Curious crowd to gain widespread public support and will lose his Cal-Look edge!!

I like my Ratto rhetoric like I like my coffee...full strength!

I would have to agree with Jim on this one. Being 23 and into fast cal-lookers may make me a social outcast to a certain extent, but isn't that the point of our cars? The vw's have always been known as the "under dogs" in comparison to V8 muscle cars of the era. I really enjoy the guy's at work talking about their newer ss camaro's and so forth, talking about how fast they are and what they have done to them. Then, when I throw my cal-looker in the conversation, "it's just a bug" to them. Can't wait to finish the car now and show em' that "it's just a bug"  ;D But on the other hand, I still drive my WRX daily. I can't get enough of the flat 4 power.

Good topic! The VW scene will be around in 20 years but it willl probably be harder to get parts. I cannot even get a wiper motor armature right now :D. The diehard fans will remain in the scene and it will stay a close-knit group. I am 22, I love my 56 and all other aircooled VWs but they are not the trendy thing, so less young kids want to own them. Most girls probably do not like them because they are loud, fast, cold(no heater) and uncomfortable.

If anyone has a 6v to 12v conversion wiper motor armature or they know where to get one please let me know. Thanks!!

Doesn't Wolfsburg West sell them.  I remember seeing them in their catalog.

One out of a '67 should work.

like i said to start this thread i got into vws before i even started work.my first sort of vws that i idolized was in a mag we used to get over here in england called street machine.the mag is now defunct but in its early days it featured lots of vws right up until the late 90s.they had a summer special mag with three or four vws in it.ritchie kings ghia with the removable hardtop in turqoise colour and centra alloys and RX exhaust running an 1835.what a car.i think that was in 1987ish.then volksworld was born.and that was it for me.like other people have said on this thread most teens dont know a thing about fast beetles.you can buy anything you want for the plastic rockets alot of these kids are buying from 4 inch exhausts to launch cabbages out of and plastic arches and bumpers that resemble fuckin wheelie bins! ;D i just cant see how we can educate them. most new blood will come from fathers passing it down to there children i reckon.my boys only 3 and drag race beetles hes mad for ;)

what you said jim about taking a bird out in either a 2276 ida ass kicker with holley fuel pump or the bmw m3 there aint no choice for me ;) that bird would be walking anyway. you wont get to the finish line first carrying all that extra weight ;D

Love it.

I'd think there was somehting wrong with my car if a chick wasn't afraid to ride in it.

Hi louis, I agree, there are some guys that unfortunately do belittle guys that are just coming around to the scene, and I think that sucks. Nobody knows everything, and we all have to start somewhere. Even before www.iknoweverything.com was born there were guys like this too, I'd go into some VW speed shops as a kid to ask questions, only to have my had chewed off and spit out by some old crochety nimwit. I think guys that really want to do what they want to do will say say "f--k you" and carry on with their plans. Which they should.

That's hilarious!

Where I live (Denver, CO) There haven't been very many fast VW's around in the 14 years that I've been driving. There are still plenty of stock or mildly modified Bugs on the road usually driven by people at least in their 30's  but it's rare to see a fast VW at all, let alone driven by somebody in their late teens or early 20's. I think part of the problem is availability. Why would somebody want to spend a lot of time and money building/restoring an old VW or any other old car when they can just stroll into a dealership and finance a tuner like a WRX or EVO and have a pretty badass car right out of the box. Plus they only need throw a few bolt on parts at them to have an extremely fast, very streetable car. And I should know because I have a WRX too (for the snow).

I've always tried to do my part to keep the scene alive here, but it's tough. Over the years, I've hepled several younger friends and two of my younger brothers build Bugs. Both of my brothers didn't have the passion, though,them eventually ended up selling their Bugs to me and buying newer cars. My youngest brother (age 15) will be driving next year and we got him a nice little '69 Bug project. I'm trying my best to instill him with California Look values and it seems to be working. I think the children are our future. :)

I think most kids today are too invoved in the "techno-crap" that prevails in society. If you can't put a chip in somewhere, they can't understand it. Show them a set of IDA's and they'll ask were to plug in the laptop to jet it.

That is part of it too. Especially when you figure that there will have to be a complete mechanical and possibly physical overhaul done to the car to even get it streetable. Add to that the considerable sum needed to get a VW into the <= 13 second range. (Yeah you can do it cheap, but it won't last.) VWs are not cheap anymore. Even I catch myself sometimes thinking, when the '67 is being a PITA, how nice it would be to roll in something that has cruise, ac/heat, power everything and is fast to boot. (Porsche!)

There are also a lack of organizations like Goodguys, the NHRA & what ever the IHRA is now putting VWs into the public's eye and reaching out to the younger generation.
 
--louis

Good point, John. I got into old cars in general because that is what my family always had. It was a smooth transition for me. I like new cars, but old stuff is much cooler.

Actually, that is one of the things I love about the VW. Its simplicity. I deal with "techno-crap" for a living, the last thing I want to do is deal with it in my hobby.

--louis

As long as there's young guys that like the old stuff, the hobby will survive, thank God! I'm glad people still like the simplicity of carbs and headers. My hat's off to you !

I just turned 27, and Slinger 26. We are the scene in northern Arizona, cal look or otherwise.

You are not outcasts.....you are true to your passion and be proud of it.
It is so unforturnate the real VW is no longer made.

Question......Are any of the sons following in their father's footsteps?


and yes it is me....Jim Rattos Mom
I registered back in....to see the pics of the BUG IN   

hi jim's mom, what time is dinner?

                                           My Dad is the original owner of my car, but I'm actually following the scene in my brother's footprints.

do you mean the drinkin? NO!

I STARTED GETTING INTO VW'S WHEN I WAS WORKING IN THE WAREHOUSE AT TREUHAFT WHEN I WAS 14 YRS OLD.IN THE SUMMER. MY MOM WORKED IN THE OFFICE. ALL THE OLDER GUYS THAT WORKED THERE HAD FAST CARS! I WAS HOOKED.THEN I STARTED HANG OUT AT AUTO HAUS OF ORANGE. MORE FAST CARS! I WAS ONE OF THE ONLY GUYS AT MY SCHOOL INTO VW'S. MY STEP-BROTHERS HAD FAST V8 CARS AND SO DID THEIR FRIENDS. I GOT A LOT OF SHIT! FROM THEM ALL THOSE YEARS AND STILL TO THIS DAY I AM STILL HEARING IT! BUT I STILL LOVE THESE CARS. TRYING TO GET MY OLDEST SON INTO VW'S OR ANYTHING ELSE BESIDES A SMALL COMPACT CAR! >:( WISH ME LUCK. LETS TRY TO KEEP THIS VW STUFF ALIVE. THANKS FOR READING. BP

I know it's a little off topic, but this reminds me of Will Ferrell in the movie Blades of Glory when he says "Chas Michael Michaels is figure skating"! I laughed for about ten minutes.

yeah plug in the laptop and that shit still will not work! story of a modern car. who can say that a modern car has NEVER done something that they couldn't understand or did again. a car that just dies and nothing can be done about it let it stand for an hour and start it without a problem. those things worry me. technology is NOT saving us!
the good part is that people still want open the lid and see what happens. even mechanics don't do that anymore these days. just swap parts, don't fix it.

anyway if Jim is old i am middleaged...

Beeing at the age of 23,the cal-look influence is getting stronger and stronger every day.As I read through the magazines,as I search the web my sickness is even worse :D But I am only the one from 5,If I could actually count five people of my age I know,who fancy the looks and are becoming the dreamers of the Look.Offcourse,we are not even from  country where so many people know about what's going on on the world scene.

Today,it is all about the modern cars,with AC,stability programs and airbags.Guys fancy Hondas,Mitsubishi,Subaru and other Japanese cars.The real ricers :D
We even have the legal competition called,the 402 street race,but Gee,when you see what kind of cars compete there, you get sick.I mean,there are some really nicely tuned cars,but to each it's own.

Often when I get out,and hang out with my friends I hear: "Hey man,when will you stop drivin this garbage and get yourself a decent car"

Not to mention,girls don't even look at it.You need to have at least a shiny color,or you have to stand out some way to get some attention.For the fat boy muffler they would say,uhhh so ugly.

And then comes the guy with the new Mercedes or BMW,and he is the boss.I tend to walk away from this crowd.

Over here,we do have a small VW club,but there are,as I said before,only few people who start to make some drastical changes to their cars.To other,money and mechanical knowledge,not to mention abillity,are the serious problems.Or the lack of will.For them,it's much better to drive the car as long as it drives nicely,and when it breaks down,they throw it away.

I have a late model,and I am trying to get the best I can from my car.My hobby is becoming more than a hobby,It really is becoming the way of life.How many young people would actually say that in the 21. century for the old bug??They lough...................

So,I will get it going as long as I have the strenght and the will,I said once: "My bug will be alive while I am alive", after that no one can garantee anything :)

That is the difference. We are VW people, others "car guys" are just ordinary people who drive cars that are a slightly different to factory stock.  ;)

22 love the scene , certain people have made it a pleasure to be in and i like to think there are only better years ahead :)

not many cal look fans within miles of the same age here in Belgium.  I'm 26 now and all of my friends are into the new stuff...  german lovers: bmw, mercedes, audi and the ricer lovers.  (the new trend is the JDM thing I guess)  I'm into all kind of old stuff, it started with an old bmx then there was 70s music, the mopeds came and then the cars...  Let's take a look at the 70s...  The "old guys now" then were nothing more then the new generation now...  Into the latest stuff around, getting yelled at because that engine is too loud (nowadays the body kits are too big and the cars sport a too little engine  ;D )

Lets face it:  callook in the 70s is nothing more then the "rice-thing" now...

I'll hope you understand my viewing point...

"Were you on steriods then?"

"Yeah, a little bit, 'bout a half cup"

 ;D :D

Hi, I don't know if I completely agree with you here....

Only because the amount of effort that went into making a good "Cal Look" car back then amounted to more than what most guys with Japanese tuner cars do today. Today, do you think guys with Japanese cars are tearing motors apart, increasing their displacement, radically re working their cylinder heads, ading valve timing AND lift, learning how to select, install AND tune dual carburetors, searching out (even then) obscure and rare wheels, and paying someone to fill molding holes, repaint and reupholster their cars. I don't think so. For one, many of the Japanese "hot rods" come with pretty hot engines, stock, not like a VW did. I know, I owned a WRX for many years and I absolutely LOVED it. I didn't do the typical "ricer" mods to it, as that's not my thing.... I kept it subtle and understated, down to stock wheels, stock height. I did a few very minor things to the engine tune to get more response. I know, most guys that owned same cars near me, they didn't rip into the car either....at the most they upgraded engine electronics. NOTHING like what we have done with the Volkswagen. Thing is, the guys that run around in the hot rodded Japanese cars....  are they really car guys? Do they spend most of their free time perfecting the tune of their ride? Do they know nearly every nut and bolt on their cars? Have they been driven to near insanity because of a flat cam or.....? I think the answer is probably "no." It's a fad they are following. I'd say the VW thing goes way beyond a "fad", at least for the hard core guys. Sure there are the guys that get interested, jump in with both feet and spend their life savings on some "world beater" cal look car, but soon the car is down the road and forgotten in some new owner's hands....

I think with ricers, the car is more of an accessory than the main focus.

--louis

I will be 26 this Sunday, I'm not so old  ;D :D

When I go to meetings, I know lot's of people of the same age as me. There is more Older guys but I think that there is a new wave of young people. Not as much as in the 70's, 80's, 90's.


I totally agree with you!

And unlike ricers, we don't need cars to exist (or have some girls). They are fashion victims.

I've often wondered if cal lookers were looked upon back then like the ricers are now. They were tuned imports, only a few years old at the time... to a true blue hot rod guy they are probably in the same bag. But at least most cal lookers had real performance, good taste, and style- something that is rare to find in the rice world...

Dave Mason said that about working at the dealer's. You plug in, it gives you a code, you look up the code in the book, you replace the 1200 dollar module the size of a quarter, start the car( hopefully) and the car runs like crap.

Jim,

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro rice or something but I think there are certainly guys in the ricer scene that mean it even seriously then we...  There are also different looks and targets in the ricer (or other) scene.  I don't know all of it because I'm not into it.  But what I can tell is that you have the over the top spoiler boys with stock engines, JDM lovers, old skool JDM lovers etc...

Just like us, we also have different "groups" in the aircooled scene...  If an outsider look at the vw scene he probably would say that it's all the same...  Why?  Because they don't know the details of the different looks and they are not interested in this "old piece of crap vw"...  Most Car enthousiasts are into cars for the speed, just like us...  But they just don't get it that you can make a bug so damn fast...It's our job to prove them wrong and tell them that we are not the same "bunch" as a f$ck$ng hoodride or a tricycle...  ;D

I just want to say that callook back then was just as fresh as the ricer or other trends these days...  Some trends stay, other fade away.  I'm glad we all want the callook thing to stay.

Dem

Hi Dem, no problem, I completely get what you're saying....I am sure some of the guys in the JDM scene are serious players.... more power to them.  The VW guys have the same yahoos as the spoiler crew...  the hoodride yahoos.

its definately a fad for most plastic rocket owners jim.ive grown up with points and condenser most kids leaving school or college havent a clue what they are or how to fit them.im glad i was on the boat.i spend alot of my time {most of it actually} following this cal look phenomenon.i spend every penny i can afford on it as well.shows,swapmeets and drag racing i love it .that definately aint no fad.ive been poor for twenty years following it and i still cant get enough of it.i think the net has been a big part of all this.the little niche we have is all good.from this thread cal look is in good hands ;)

Right on! The scene will live on thanks to guys like you Dem....  good job!  :)

And Then The Toothed Belts.... For cams etc.  These guys come in to our shop wining about dealer prices like 600 Euro's ! to replace the toothed belt. Like some Audi models where you have to take the complete nose of the car just to start on the engine part... Michael, my colleque and me doing this shit during lunchbreak. Last week we had a guy in with a Peugot asking to replace a lightbulb. On this WPumper it would have taken us at least 45 minutes of wrenchin just to get to the headlight. Not mentioning how much f?/>kng plastic clips you break. Now we had to buy a diagnose machine just to get our leasing cars and fire trucks running. When we started working this baby it just said: problem here, replace module there...
If this is the future, and it is. so help us god. ALL car manufacturers (the word alone) will make us completely dependable on them. No more backyard wrenchers.

We checked a BMW, because its oillight was coming on in Orange, not Red. The Machine told us the oil was somehow contaminated with water/condense.

Fucking Hell.

Sometimes i'm seriously thinking of buying another aircooler for daily driver, JUST BECAUSE.

New Blood ? 52 and still not grown up, Thank God.

going off subject a little guys but do you all remember a film called christine.had a 1957 plymouth fury gorgeous in bright red.well the kiddy that owned it his name was arnie cunningham in the film.now that car i know has no relevance but his passion for the rebuild and taking care of puts me in the mind of us really.i know its only a film it aint true but the resemblance is there to see.now the local boyz in the hood didnt like the fact that arnie had a stunning car and also pulled the best girl at the school so they decided to go and beat the shit out of it.arnies parents never liked the car and he could not keep it at there house.when the car was vandalised they the parents decided to buy arnie a new car.arnie at this time started to laugh and he said now thats what everybody wants for me to have a nice new car! then he turned round and said well fuck you!! im fixing up christine. now there have been many times in my bug years when people either parents or friends that have said why dont you go and buy a nice new car!! and in true arnie cunningham stylee ive turned round and said "fuck you" i could of bought a 10 grand worthless in five years piece of shit but fuck it really.im happy driving a fast bug that drive the right wheels in a straightline really fast. ;D

I love that movie and I agree with you statement. I don't know how many times friends and family members (especially my mother) asked me when I was going to get a "grownup car". She was over the moon when I bought a Subaru WRX station wagon a couple years ago. I only bought it because i was tired of driving my Camaro and my Bug in the snow. When the sun is shining and the roads are clear, though, the Suby sits and my old cars get exercise. Sort of like those bumper stickers say - I'd rather push my old stuff than drive a modern car.