A few years ago I did "the long distance cal-look drive on the street" thing in my low 12 second bug. It was agreat adventure and when I got home and called my friend Mark Herbert up, he thought it was a great story so with his help I got it all written down. This was in 2003 so time has passed, my eyes are not the same anymore and my memory slips. But my mind is still set on having fun in my V-dub!!! Hold on and lean back for some reading.
I was reading the CLF a couple of years ago about this lonely guy who brought his V-dub in to the V8 territory and won race after race, beating them Mopars with this primered bug with a nitrous oxide injected 1835….Him against the world……Dean Kirsten told the story and I got caught by its atmosphere….so cool…so free….so out of line.
One of this day, on my way to work I find this old tape in the glove box. I put it in the tape recorder and read on the cover: ”Marlboro Music Mix” of some kind from long ago and I am listening while thinking of all kinds of thoughts….about job, family etc…….And then comes this remix of Lou Reeds ”Walk on the wild side”….time stops and I listen to the song…..over and over again…it’s about decadens but also about the life of being a little out of the normal pattern….title appeals to me and some thing started inside of me….so I go on listening to the song and thinks about what it is…and I don’t know what it is….A while later I read this input on the Scandinavian Cal look forum titled ”Are we V-dub owners maybe a little boring”….and inside of my head thought tumble around….I was 42 years old, I got a family and a good job…..I want an adventure, let the mind get out of the box and live, not through others like in the soap operas but through my self. I want to experience ”A walk on the wild side” once again, like it is in my head! As a adventure and a study……….and while doing it, having fun!
Back in my garage the old 59 lurks silently and air pressure is dropping from one of it’s rear tires, somehow everything else needed to be done has had a priority. A quick check on the status of things reveals it all looks ok. Checking the calendar of a car magazine reveals a big cruise and show´n shine taking place in the near future and this is the same week as there is a V-dub meet with my buddies nearby……..this looks to good and has to be done….my own tour plan is about to get released!! I am going to have fun and attend the adventure!!
So on Saturday the car is packed up, I start the engine and hits the road…..”I’m a poor lonesome Cowboy and a long way from home”….just like Lucky Luke sang in the Comic book. I travel through a green Sweden and due to a ”natural venting” of the cars body and no heating, nature is very absent. I am doing mile after mile. I stop for a Coke at a gas station…..restlessness makes me get in to the car and I start it up and finish the Coke while driving….I am on my way and I want to get there, wherever that is!!
I travel through villages, long time abounded, only mailboxes by the main road reminding of glory days long time forgotten. I don’t see any other livings for long times, just me and my machine. I stop once again at a gas station to get a stretch of my legs. My buddy Roman calls on the cell phone and tells me that Leif Nyström in a turbocharged bug has managed some low nines at a local racetrack and Roman is surprised about my ”tour”. I get out of the station and in to the car. I grab my Gene Berg shifter, incidentally coming from Leifs Pro Turbo car and bought used ….I was getting closer to the main city of the County I live in (Kalmar or So Cal-mar as we use to say)….pace is going up and more cars are crammed on the road…road turns in to a freeway and a taxi driver marks its presence by nearly nosing my rear bumper…..so I just hit the gas pedal and the Taxi car quickly gets smaller in my rear view mirror……I can see he is now struggling to get back in position and drives by me….he is looking straight forward
. I then come in to the town and the whole 2 lane road is amazingly all empty and all traffic lights are green when suddenly my brakes goes away, completely. Without getting panicked I slowly brings the speed down. A quick check revels that the pivot pin going through the pin going in to the master cylinder has popped out….wow that’s nothing I knew could happen. It was scary, but part of the tour plan was meeting dangers. I fix the fault and look out on the parking lot outside the mall…..some local street racer boys are hanging on their streamlined modern Japanese origami monsters……I walk up to them and ask if there is a race tonight…..”around eleven pm” is the reply by one of the youngsters and he gets on asking ”what’s in that car?”…..”a Volkswagen engine with dual carburetors” is my reply and I then take of.
At a nearby gas station I check the motor over. I got to talk to an elder man who recognized the manufacturing year of the car. As I lean in to the motor checking one of the carbs I get this funny feeling and out of a innocent plain white Volvo right behind me gets two uniformed cops, they look at me, study the car and my IDA lurking in the half dark, they turn around and I find it time to leave and I think to my self….so close, but yet so far. I head down to the cruise and my buddies are meeting up with there Cal-look cars as the dawn is getting it’s grip of the city….the whole city is quickly filled with US cars from the 50’s and the 60’s and it’s party time….our little Volkswagen camp even gets some recognition. A while later McDonalds call it closed in front of us, it is 9 pm and Saturday!!? So we had to find an other place to get some burgers at. While we were eating it started to rain so when we get back to our cars the streets are wet and we take of…….my buddy in his red 67 with a 48 IDA equipped 2175 cc and Berg 5 speed with ZF LSD in front of me takes of going sideways so I follow suit by intuition and show both side of my car to the cars in front of me…at least it cleaned up the sparkplugs. Anyway, a while later we end up at the street racer hangout by the mall. A huge guy walks up and ask if we are interested in a race taking place at 11 pm….my buddies points at me, stating that I am interested….so I ask if this Grey Turbo Volvo (740 with turbo and claimed to be the fastest of the pack) is out tonight, but to my saddness he wasn’t. My friends takes off back to there respective houses and I get in to the car and takes the route to the ”race track” where I meet this gentlemen’s once again, this time in the dark on the wide military secret airfield but normally it is a road. ”Now that you are here, let’s see if you drive as good as you talk” the huge guys asks……”yeah what have you got to come up with” is my humble reply……”oooooooh man, that’s hard talking” they replied, so I said ”just show me what you got and I will race it…byt I want 200 meters not 400 (1/8 mile not ¼ mile)”……they quickly said ”that’s just because it's a V-dub…..400 and that’s it”…..I tried to get a race with a red BMW M3 but he had seen my car and backed off….. So what I got was a Volvo V40 Estate wagon…..and I set up the race for kill, and kill I did….this guy just vanished in my rear view mirror……When I get back some guy asked about the specs on the engine and I reply ”It’s a Volkswagen engine with 2 carburetors” . I park the car and check out the race and a yellow BMW M3 looks like the hot car of the night. So when the chance of racing him comes up I grab it an beats him big time….tale is that it was this guys first sober weekend since 6 months….and he gets to race a Volkswagen and looses!!
Anyway I did not return after the race, just kept going as it was a shortcut to my place to sleep. I struggle as the lost sleep creeps in to my body while I drive my car and as soon as I get in bed I fall asleep. Next day I wake up by myself to the sound of V8’s passing by on the road outside the window, I feel comfortable and fresh. The big show’n shine is about to take place. Once again I feel restless while I have to finish up the morning duties. When I enter the steps outside the house, sun is very evident. Day two has started and so did my motor. I enter the show ground and a lot of people in attendance. I meet the editor of a car magazine and he takes some photos of the car with me standing by it (It is in Power magazine, this months issue). My friend in his cool 67 sedan on BRM joins me and parks by me…..two small V-dubs among a field of big cubic inch American iron. Time for the swap meet and we stroll along looking at all kinds of things…and there among all rusty stuff is a wooden steering wheel (looking like a GTV) in good condition and lo and behold, there is two really good looking semaphores…seller want’s 50 USD for the steering wheel and semaphores and that is cheap….so I leave al the parts there….just to come back and deal it down to 40 USD….just for the sake of stretching the limit to the outer perimeter because that is the purpose of the trip. Some of the V8 guys comes up and asked about the engine and I reply “it’s a Volkswagen engine with 2 carburetors”. By the way, these V8 guys are called “Raggare”……like English rockers….and it is with fascination I see them telling tales bout the good old days and telling what they are going to do with there huge piles of iron machines as soon as they get the time to refurbish them. Some are performing under influence of alcohol and playing rude songs by there idol, Eddie Meduza. Maybe they have a good time doing what they like or they are completely lost in a world that once was. Them suddenly comes a Mopar, early 60 something ….looking racy but on the other hand stock…he is running a big 500” engine in it so I persuade him to open the hood to see the fully chromed Hooker headers he have. Poetry in motion and close to a Cal look car…but in Mopar dress. He gets our thumbs up! We saw him take of and as the sound of his Holley pump vanished the urge to go home appeared. Just outside the show, in a T cross, a Volvo has smashed in to a Cadillac limousine. I turn of the road and in to the gas station. I start to do some minor work on the car but it appears as if a young kid is shocked and I help the daddy to get some warm blanket on him and have him lay down. I see more people getting in to chock and is about to start to help them when the ambulance enters…….All in all 5 people were injured, it lloked like none of the bystanders where helping them and risks in life felt very present at that moment.
Next day is Monday, so it is time to work. I keep my car at some friends place. On Tuesday it is of to Kalmar and meeting up with my friends in Der Bruckenrenners. We had a good time and time was flying by…..like Cinderella that had to go home before midnight I had to leave earlier than I wanted. I was going to yet an other Bug club on Wednesday but to much work and rain stopped me from doing it. On Friday it is time to go home. The trip is once again a pleasure with smells and a green landscape showing it’s best and sun shining on all of it like icing on a cake. I only stopped once but that was all that was need, I felt. From time to time I was wearing earplugs and I could easily go 60 mph The whole trip was an fantastic experience and all in all I was 950 miles of fun and above all meeting interesting people. I got to meet Raggare, Magazine editors, Pokemon racers, V-dubbers, Police………..Anyway, I stopped at this gas station and gets out of the car. While I get out of my car and stretch my body some middle-aged gentlemen racing jalopies (could easily be spotted from the looks of them) was hanging on a bench. They look at my car and asks: ”is there an 1800 cc engine in it?”….”Nope” I replied…..”A 1600 then?” he asks…..”Nope….2633 cc” I answers……”Yeah you could here on the sound that it was big” is what he replies…..I wonder about there mathematical iteration logic but also thinks about Lou Reeds ” Candy came from out there on the island in the backroom she was everybody’s darling, a huzzle here and huzzle there, New York City is the place where, they say: Hey Babe take a walk on the wild side...." Happiness is a Hot VW!!!!
The Cal-look Lounge
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