The Cal-look Lounge

question for the day..... have fun and run with it.

id say more style than tech
but def both

Its a blending of the two. Otherwise a ratrod with a 2 liter or a GFK car with a 1200 would be cal-look.

--louis

In the day when it was invented it was Tech to make your VW quick
Now its style as most of us are doing what those guys were back in the 70's.

If it were tech all cal lookers would run EFI, Turbos etc and 48IDA's would be long gone.

it's a style about the tech from back in the days...  ;)

yeeeez. you are so right................................................................

Could it be getting BORING ?? I don't know, i love the engine stuff..  DKK/Fred  gets my vote as well. Then you get the discussion Early Look or Late Look. I made my mistakes, trying to convert to early look. It didn't work for me, thanks to the Lounge, but now i know certain rules and still can do my own thing. If people don't like my car, fuck 'em it's my thing and i'm happy to stroke that thing in my garage and feel good about it.

                                                    Thank God for you , Mark!

no way guys, it's all about ordering the "cal look drag car kit" online and putting it together this weekend.

I'm ordering the Sea Blue '64 Bug kit with mags and Weber engine.  ;D

                                                       Anything I say will get me in a whole lotta trouble!

Do tell !!!

As far as I know, the California look must be the most documented style of modifying a single make of automobile, so I'd have to say tech takes a back seat to style. I'd go so far as to call it a way of life!   

I forgot the zoso sticker in the 1/4 windows

                                                  Check out the last photo I posted in the old thread about my car.                            "Spicoli's voice" Nah dude, but I drove it up the curb in front of Circle Porsche about 28 years ago!

"Dang!.....  you got berms, Webers, A1 header..... luck- eeeee"

                      Oh yes I did! You were still at Autohaus, and I had to buy two new chromies from you. Some guy in a truck cut me off in the traffic circle and up the curb I went turning two wheels into taco shells.

holly words :) couldn't say it better.

cal-lookers with turbo EFI, EFI can be named new Age Cal-look ;P or a XXI century Cal-look. If you're makeing cal-look like in 70ties, with (or without) all that stuff in side or outside Youre making a replica of that what was going on back than. You can't say: "if they would have those things (EFI etc) back then they would use it... " now is now then was then :) makeing turbo EFI "perfect" cal-looker is the same thing as putting diesel to a 69 Mustang :P insted of V8 :D (a litle bit hardkore comparison).
thats my opinion. wanna have a cal-looker make it as it was back then, wanna put fancy toys in it taken from star trek :P you will get New age Cal-looker :D  (I'll be kille in a moment probobly :P)

For me it's 'Style' for sure.

 Owning a Beetles back in the 70's was all about creating your own style. Even if it's your own take of an already created style?

  I was always desperate to make my Beetles stand out look different from the rest and that had to be 'Style' only because back then I was 'Technically Challenged'..

   Bolting on some wide wheels (or mounting them round the wrong way :o)  and some stripes, definatley came under the 'Style' heading??

    Or at least, I thought so at the time?

      Often my results were less than succesful it must be said.. ;D

        The 'Tech' was what ever was available back then. Which for most wasn't much.

            But as we all surely know by now...    necessity is the mother of invention.     

                                 Hence the birth of this 'Scene' we all love so much. :)

Ahhh And I thouht it all was "How you stand by your car" :).........................

on a more serous note: It all boils down to 50% owners attitude(style)...50% performance(tech).....and 50% placement of wheels(style and tech)....and last but not least 50% "The rake"(style)........I think I got it all figured out couse that is more then 100%, so you need a lot of time and energy and then some taste or to compensate for lack of taste even more time and energy to redo things until they end up looking good or you give up :)

Well it is neither, it became a religion and at that it seems to be on the edge of bigotry.  :o  I am serious, there is so much intolerance in this scene. There are tons of self-appointed style policemen out there. In a sense it is sickening.  :(  Where did all the good custom ideas go?
Don't get me wrong, I love the Cal Look "Style" but I miss the "Tech Part" in it. Today the most ingenious thing seems to be Rats, how creative is this? You go to a bug show and who wins the show and shine? Some rust bucket...

I am trying to mix style and tech. I commited an outrage by replacing my true to all specs Cal Look Mouse Motor with a ton of fun turbo motor, and guess what, I give a sh** about style police.  ;D

My 2 cents

Cheers
Dom  8)

forgive him....he`s SWISS and he has its new powerplant build in da BUG. The power of his Turboengine takes off all its blood in the brain....hahaha. Im just kidding....nice, have U here at the lounge too.

Sali Big D ( hoff mir gsehn uns bald wieder mol....haang loose )

My guess is that the clue is probably in the name of the 'style'... California... Look.

But then I'm sure you'll agree that something can look stylish, something can look fast and something can look as though it has attitude.


Something can also look as though it's a drag racing VW on the street... And to me that is NOT what Cal Look is about - To me it's about NOT 'looking' obviously fast, but being able to hoodwink those who think they have a fast car by the administration a short, sharp, shock when the lights go green!   

Subtle - with a sting it the tail - that's my rendition of Cal Look. 

Forgive me Ivan, what you discribe as your rendition of Cal Look is i.m.o. the description of a Sleeper. Steve Beecher's bug would then be a prime example of a Cal Looker  ::)
I like Subtle - with a sting it the tail myself, there is nothing cooler than fight ricers on the street.  ;D

Cheers Dom  8)

Which period of the callook?

I think its more the style then tech.
Everybody wants to copy the style of the 70's. ;D

Street racing and Cal-look is like gun fights and the wild west, they sort of go together :) .....In my opinion, as I do not take part of this anymore, is that it is rather easy to get a street race going when you are driving a Cal-look car (just sand bag the 2-3 first times and then set up the real race).....I even know of guys that have raced motorcycles :) claiming "It is just and old Volkswagen and I only want to try the car and no one else is racing".......I loved the late Gene Berg telling some Dodge boys that "they should tell their friends that they just beat a Volkswagen!!!!!" ....You can't loose in a Volkswagen!!

Well, as Ivan just said, it's all in the name... California LOOK.
You have fast ones, slow ones, subtle ones, outrageous ones, but in the end it's just a look!

I agree that the tech part is and has always been important, but then again it's not called California Tech...

I have enjoyed it every time I have met a motorbike at the lights when I'm in my '67...

By the time they realize it's not just an old VW, my work is done  ;)

http://www.caltech.edu/

For me it is more an attitude than look or a technical sheet.

A cal look guy is somebody that try to improve the look and power of his bug.

For the car, it is a clean, sober VW, with the good rake and tyres combo that gives the look we love all. A feeling of speed, even when the car is stopping.
Than, have the HP to match the look is better...

That's for me. It is not all about the car.

thirty years ago I would have said decromeing, lowering, and mono tone color for paint and empi or some type of porsche wheels was cal-look !  just amazing back then. and still the same now HUH......

Yep.

For me the Cal Look represented an aesthetic credo, following two principles of “form follows function” and “ornament is a crime”. Inspired by performance [specifically Porsche], the simple form and design all contributed to the focus on performance. So the style and tech have a symbiotic relationship. Without one, the other dies.

-jeffrey

Oh, man...
'Nuff said for me.

Actually it's a '69 and it's still waiting for me to get started on it. I've got a '65 Chevy pick-up project that I need to finish before the wife allows me to start on another new project ;^)

However without her knowing, I'm secretly picking up the necessary pieces to help get it all together. I picked up an early set of Riviera's that I had fully polished, along with some 145's and 185's. I went looking for a Berg 1 5/8's extractor and muffler and Kathy said that their manufacturer bagged their product for making RV parts so I'm gonna have to call A1 for my exhaust needs. I'm narrowing down my beam choices, along with a few brake mods. I picked up a set of pretty clean pop-outs on e-bay ['$65] with a pretty cool "Help Stamp out Hodads" sticker on one that I'm gonna try to save. Combined with an old Jack's Surf Shop Sticker in the rear window it's taking on a surf theme.

-jeffrey