When did the California Look fever take off in Europe?

[roland]

The December 1995 issue included a group of young and enthusiastic guys from Belgium - who had started a club and had squeaky clean cars, one of which was clearly Old School. The club was, of course the DAS, and the feature includes a photo of a very young pair of twins - Fred and Mike di Placido - The Feb 2008 issue included Fred's latest car - a '63 ragtop see here - http://www.volksworld.com/news/cars/172468/fred-s-1963-ragtop-beetle.html

Pat, the guy with the beryl green 62 in that feature told me once that he saw a small picture of bill schwimmer's car in an early VW mag, and he thought that it was awesome and that he needed to change asap his 62 (then resto-cal) to match that style...

And the guy in front in the picture is laurent dejeaifve, he's the crazy person doing my body work right now! 

Maybe speedwell has that Volksworld and could provide us with a little picture?

[speedwell]

sure roland 

[speedwell]

here we go , this issue was the first volksworld i bought 

[speedwell]

 

[speedwell]

i remember after having read this issue, I wanted to have brms as the car of PAT and I think that in February or March 96 I went down to JR FELLER in france to seek my rims, at this time they cost 1350€  what has price in 96, and in April 96 the  rims were on the car and by the same occasion I have some to profit to built another engine one 1300 DA with weber 32/36  yes i know it's not cal look but for the time i was happy with this  some picture will follow in another thread

[streetvw]

I remember these photos been taken by Mike Key on the runway next to avon park (think it ws the beetle bash that Bill and Dave Rhoads cars were at the show) at the time I was running round in my 63 ragtop ongoing project and was blown away by the quality of the cars that had come to the show from belgium. What a weekend that was, I had my first runs up the strip in my bug that weekend racing mainly my brother in his then red 67 great memories 

[Neil Davies]

This was the year before the Americans came. I remember seeing your brother's red '67 - that was one of the defining cars for me. Early in 1996 I put a '67 decklid and long bonnet on my '68 (september '67 built, so close...) and it was that car that made me leave upright lamps on it!

[LuftsickTero]

i remember after having read this issue, I wanted to have brms as the car of PAT and I think that in February or March 96 I went down to JR FELLER in france to seek my rims, at this time they cost 1350€  what has price in 96, and in April 96 the  rims were on the car and by the same occasion I have some to profit to built another engine one 1300 DA with weber 32/36  yes i know it's not cal look but for the time i was happy with this  some picture will follow in another thread

Now that you mentioned Rene Feller.. The first DKP III/Old School Cal Look influenced Finnish car was Alhoracing's '61 which was built around 1993/94. He had visited the California Jamboree and seeing Dave Mason's '62 made ever lasting influence. One more Black Bomber

First with Sprint Stars and 12-sec stroker on road trip to Paris from Helsinki. Among other sights he visited Rene Feller.


After the repro BRMs became available with temporal engine:


Today with 1776cc:

[streetvw]

This was the year before the Americans came. I remember seeing your brother's red '67 - that was one of the defining cars for me. Early in 1996 I put a '67 decklid and long bonnet on my '68 (september '67 built, so close...) and it was that car that made me leave upright lamps on it!

that red shitter turned you on to cal look 67's? WOW you have low standards 

[Neil Davies]

It just looked right! Stance is everything! I bought some bits and pieces of your brother a couple of years ago and got to see the car up close in his garage - he really did a beautiful job on it. Really cleaned it up but kept the stance right.

[Peter Roberts]

Personally I think clubs like, DFL, DBS, DKT, Bahnstorners and off corse DAS played a major Role in promoting the Real California Look Cars over here in Europe...

Sorry if i Forgot any Club...

Frank

Hey Frank old buddy , I can't believe you forgot us , in the good ole JG54 , now how did that happen 

[too old for this]

Personally I think clubs like, DFL, DBS, DKT, Bahnstorners and off corse DAS played a major Role in promoting the Real California Look Cars over here in Europe...

Sorry if i Forgot any Club...

Frank

Hey Frank old buddy , I can't believe you forgot us , in the good ole JG54 , now how did that happen 

probably just slipped his mind...........................probably

[SplitMan]

This topic passed me by earlier.... I see Sweden, Finland and UK have all told "their stories" and got it straight...

My two cents... Ever since the early eighties, Europe pretty much followed a couple of years behind the US on the pastels and eighties smooth, billet, peach&pruple Cal Look type... but a milestone in the movement "return to Cal Look roots"...was - as Ivan describes it - Paal Rui from Norways white '62 from 1992 and then the red wonder from a few year later. And finally, when Paal launched his brown worn Split... in 1997/98....let there be no doubt for future history - he DEFINED the wron and torn and battered "beater patina" look that endless amounts of Europeans have copied and "abused" since then. Not only was the brown Split a milestone car in terms of style...but as much in terms of condition/patina. For the record.

[TOM / EINHEIT 11]

if U talking about pre cal look / 70s style ( DKP ) i would say.....since 4-5 years. Thats because of the magazines and reunion of DKP.
There were sporadi-cal cars around befor but very few. Leaders were mostly from UK and Belgium and Sweden/Norway.
But there was a big scene in 80s & 90s allready in France belgium switzerland. That kind of carstylez we called CAL-LOOK. It was a very surfy, colorful style. Our club was founded back in 86. Style was very similar to early cali clubs......alu / magnesium wheels.....356 porsche wheels.....lowered front ends.......motolitasteerings e.t.c ! In the 90s we changed to the europeen cal- look style.....like a described above. Today we are back in 70s style.........and a little custom and resto
Now....whats Cal- Look? 

[outlaw]

Guys

I agree with Ivan almost 99% But to be fair back in 87 with Custom Car "VWxyz" when keith had the fastback it was done in cal look style straight paint, dechromed, empi5s and how can we forget Colins red 68 it was again cal look style, both these cars along with a few others (ritchie king had one) were really where it started, all be it very slowly.

Theres no doubt your 67 is one of the coolest cal lookers in the UK and was away ahead of its time !!!! Or did you actually copy Arnie Molhmans ? Only Joking ! ha,ha

I agree with this, for us it all started in the 80s and pretty much down to Colin Burnhams bug. A pal of mine Ian Hobson copied this car but ran an IRS backend, fuchs, U.S plates and blue paint. This car was for us the very 1st Cal Look bug in the north east of England, it was sold to a pal called Mark Neville who ran it like that for a few years then changed the style.

I ran a car that I classed as Cal Look -SEE PIC- ......it was in 1988.

Other pals were lowering their cars, fitting one piece windows, Fuchs and "hotter" motors and we all "talked" Cal Look.
To be honest though we knew nothing of the history, companies, clubs etc etc. It was just a style for us and Kadron and (Taiwan) Empi were the parts we bought. Be got Hot Vws mags at the shows and we had a couple of dodgy videos from the U.S which featured a bit of racing, shows and babes 
Bug Jam 1 was our little bit of California for a day and although there were all sorts of VWs there, there were still a load of Cal bugs. A great, great show.
Volksworld boosted the scene 100% and taught us all what the look was really about and if it wasn´t for Volksworld the scene may well have vanished after a couple of years.

But as far as I´m concerned it was the late 80s in the UK.