crazy caravan

[speedwell]

jim can you tell us some stories about the late 80's & early 90's crazy caravan 
those report on hot vws  seemed to be enough owl to be made 
fabs

[Jim Ratto]

Actually I always went to Sac from Bay Area with the BH crew. Never went on the caravan. Sorry fabs,
Jim

[axam48ida]

Jim, It's Saturday in SoCal and it's raining??? What's up? with the weather?
we came down here for my daughters softball toury and HB fields were soaked.
EVerybody knows "It not suppose to rain in southern ca"
and no bug show going on today!
 

[Jim Ratto]

Yeah it poured last night up here in Simi. Dry today though, took VW out for drive this morning. 

[Donny B.]

I did the California Caravan in 1987.  I wonder how many of you out there did it that year.  I had been reading about it in Hot VWs and wanted to participate so the wife and I headed over on Friday night to stay with my wife's aunt in Hawthorne.  We got up around 4:00 AM and headed down to Costa Mesa.  When we got there we found a few cars already waiting to join get going.  One hispanic fella came over noticing the out of state plates and welcomed us.  He was the only person that made an effort to meet us that whole weekend.  We got breakfast at a cafe on the corner then rejoined the folks waiting.  About sunrise the organizers showed up and sold some event T-shirts.  The told us the route and some of the rules like we would be going 65 mph most of the way.  The think I remember most was the run up the Grapevine.  There were cars dropping like flies on that thing.  We gassed up somewhere in the middle of the Grapevine and it was like a zoo.  I remember a crude Notch with an upright turbo motor.  Most of the cars were so so, but there were some really nice ones.  Mine was pretty ugly at the time.  I remember stopping for lunch.   CB Performance popped for the pizzas.  I managed to take a bunch of photos at the lunch stop.  Maybe later I will post some to bring back memories.  After lunch we headed north again.  It was cool seeing folks on the overpasses waving and taking pictures.  At the last stop along the way the CHP over-reacted and decided to control our departure letting only six cars leave a time then a few minutes later six more.  This made many folks late to their hotel.  I remember one guy didn't have his room on a credit card and someone else got his room.  I had paid for mine in advance so I was okay.  At the end of the Caravan we all grouped in an old parking lot so Hot VWs could get a photo from a helicopter.  There reportedly were 419 cars at the end making it the largest California Caravan ever.  After checking into our hotel my wife and I donned our event T-shirts and walked to a local restaurant for dinner.  When we walked in many people noticed the shirts and began clapping.  It was a cool event and we had a lot of fun although we didn't know anybody.  So who else has memories of the '87 Caravan?

[louisb]

Post some pics. That sounds very cool.
 
--louis

[Bryan67]

I think I did all but the very first one. That was along time ago so the memories are fading but... They were pretty crazy at times. One time the caravan was sponsered by a water pumper club and they were speeding all over the place. Passing on the right hand shoulder an just generally being stupid. I think that same year there was a Bug that rolled on the side of the freeway. Another time we were supposed to stop at the State Farm office in Merced but the lot was too small to handle the huge amount of cars. There were cars backed up on the freeway and cars leaving at the same time. I also remember Derek Gregg avoiding the whole mess by bonzaiing it through the grass field in front of the office. Pulliing right off the freeway onto the lot at speed. That was in his green and white shorty Bus which had by then been converted into an off road Bus. Good times for sure.

[Donny B.]

Here's some photos from the '87 California Caravan.  The first is of the start in Costa Mesa.  The second and third are of one of the gas stops.  The fourth is of the lunch stop.

[Donny B.]

These last three photos are actually a collage of many photos pieced together to make a panarama of everyone at the end of the Caravan in '87.  This should give you some idea of how big it really was though.

[ESH]

...There reportedly were 419 cars at the end making it the largest California Caravan ever...

Sounds like one of those great events that happens from time to time, thanks for the photo's. 

[speedwell]

  cool pictures don awesome , that will be cool to do something like that nowadays , in france there some years ago they made a similar caravan that was for the super vw meeting i will scan the report in a few days 
and now some report from  the hot vws

[speedwell]