getting more credtis if you are famous in the scene?

[wolfswest]

I’m not looking to start a riot here or trowing with mud but it’s a phenomenom I see and I want to see if others recoginize it as well.  Is it a phenomenom that is just around these days or was it also like this in the 70ies etc, I think it is something of all times…  What are your ideas or thoughts about it.

Is it more simple to build a cal-looker (or any other look) that has everybody’s blessing if you are “famous” ?  I think: absolutely! 

Not going to mention some names here, because I don’t see this as a personal thing or hate or love or whatever for these persons but it’s just a fact.  If you are in a famous club, or you are friends of a well known person in the scene or you are a well known person in the scene you get all the credits. Whatever you do...

If “mister X” comes to a meeting tomorrow with a pink bug with white dots on it and some bling rims (maybe this is a little bit over the top but I just want you to know what I mean) it’s allright!   Hell Yeah, What a new style,   everybody is happy  etc, and everybody follows him and adores him and the next month the car is on every magazine’s front cover and you see 20 other cars with the same treatment…

If an infamous guy or a newbie in the scene comes up with a car with a new idea or special rims to be different  it doesn’t mean shit.  Not like the example with the pink bug with bling rims but realy a nice new touch or part or rim or seat or whatever that could introduce a new wave in a “look”.  The crowd will pass by and will start mocking with the car, laughing, giving stupid replies on a forum etc…  but if the same car will appear with a “famous head” in it it will be A-Okay! 

There are realy a bunch of cal-lookers or other lookers out there that doesn’t get the respect they should get because they are build by the wrong or infamous guy….

Hope you get my point and I’m looking forward what you guys think of…  I know here are famous and infamous guys around, so let’s hear your ideas! 

[bathing ape]

i think if you come up with a good car it WILL get noticed/recognised,doesn't matter who you are

[yvre]

Don't agree.

An ugly car is an ugly car, a nice car is a nice car - whoever the owner.

Look at some of the cars that 'appeared' this summer.
Nicolas' fastback - received a prize at DDD5 - never heard of the guy before.
Same goes for some of the cars that were primed at EBI (grey split or some others I don't remember).

It's a matter of (good) taste, not celebrity.

[wolfswest]

Look at some of the cars that 'appeared' this summer.
Nicolas' fastback - received a prize at DDD5 - never heard of the guy before.
Same goes for some of the cars that were primed at EBI (grey split or some others I don't remember).

That's true.  I realy love Nicolas his T3 but he didn't do something "new"  He used well known cal-look indegrients: nice non metallic paint, empi 8 spokes, etc...  Not something new under the sun...

@ Nicolas, I don't want to insult you, like I said before: your car is amazing but I just just want to say that there is not something "new or extravagant" on your car...  you get my point?

A nice car is a nice car, no mather what or who build it, but I'm reffering more to introduce "new elements" into the game as a infamous guy...  hard to explain my point in a different language...

[Rick Meredith]

I think that there is some truth to that.

Dave McNew was president of DKK when I joined. He used to say that if we painted a white stripe with pink polka-dots down the center of our cars pretty soon everyone would be doing the same.

Case in point... 76 Gas Stations used to have these orange Styrofoam antenna balls with their logo slikscreened on them for advertisement. I hit up a buddy who worked for a 76 station and he gave me a case of them. After we set up the Club display at a Bug-In I went around and put a 76 ball on each car. Pretty soon, 76 balls were showing up on ca-look cars all over.

[speedwell]

but what do you want to introduce again I think that there was already not badly thing explored and tested with the Volkswagen,  
i think like yve , you know what you build and if you have good taste, it will be can be recognized, and will appear in a magazine, but  it may be that although the car 've good taste that it is not never recognized and finishes in the lapse of memory like considerable built cars, it is true that if you are known it will be increasingly easier to have recognition of your car, but for me the pleasure is to even build its car for oneself and the others afterwards, and it is true that the recognition will give pleasure with its owner

[speedwell]

I think that there is some truth to that.

Dave McNew was president of DKK when I joined. He used to say that if we painted a white stripe with pink polka-dots down the center of our cars pretty soon everyone would be doing the same.

Case in point... 76 Gas Stations used to have these orange Styrofoam antenna balls with their logo slikscreened on them for advertisement. I hit up a buddy who worked for a 76 station and he gave me a case of them. After we set up the Club display at a Bug-In I went around and put a 76 ball on each car. Pretty soon, 76 balls were showing up on ca-look cars all over.

ok rick  ,but what style existed at that time??? cal look and custom, not much more or some share it was normal that people would have followed this tendency, but nowadays there are so much style, resto cal, old school, german look, racing, pro street, french look etc.... no more news style to follow  or to create
rgd
fabs

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

I am Waiting for the Dual Chrome strip cars to come out LMAO

[louisb]

What gets me is that someone well known in the VW community will have worked on or owned a car for only a short time and somehow it is something special. I bet one of the big names could take any old car, screw a bunch of the "must have" parts on it, and sell it on a premium just because they built it.

--louis

[Jim Ratto]

I think this kind of follows the same thoughts I had back when I posted the bit about "what's the big deal about who owned a car?"

Right?

[louisb]

I think this kind of follows the same thoughts I had back when I posted the bit about "what's the big deal about who owned a car?"

Right?

Yeah I think so. Been thinking on that subject for a while. I have decided that there has to be some history with car, more so than the owner. Either the car has to be some sort of milestone, or the person who owned did something, with the car, that makes it special. Take the Berg Black car, it has a history because of who owned it, but also because what they did with it for so many years. Now take Clyde's car that has been on the samba for over a year. Is it special because a Berg happened to own it. Not really since it doesn't have the same pedigree. Remember, its the cars and what they do with them that make people well known in this hobby. Not the other way around.

--louis

[louisb]

Now, can owning a famous or well known car give the owner extra street cred? 

--louis

[Rick Meredith]

I think that there is some truth to that.

Dave McNew was president of DKK when I joined. He used to say that if we painted a white stripe with pink polka-dots down the center of our cars pretty soon everyone would be doing the same.

Case in point... 76 Gas Stations used to have these orange Styrofoam antenna balls with their logo slikscreened on them for advertisement. I hit up a buddy who worked for a 76 station and he gave me a case of them. After we set up the Club display at a Bug-In I went around and put a 76 ball on each car. Pretty soon, 76 balls were showing up on ca-look cars all over.

ok rick  ,but what style existed at that time??? cal look and custom, not much more or some share it was normal that people would have followed this tendency, but nowadays there are so much style, resto cal, old school, german look, racing, pro street, french look etc.... no more news style to follow  or to create
rgd
fabs

True... there wasn't he divisions in Cal-Look like today... there were certainly guys that were sporting a lot of accessories but they were still Cal-Look. My Notchback had a set of Cibie 95 foglights on it... yet no one thought it was not Cal-Look. We were looking to Europe and seeing what was popular over there and blending it with what we were doing here. I do think that some of the European influence is forgotten when we talk about Cal-Look. I was converting my US Code '67 to be a European Code Deluxe and had actually acquired all the pieces to do so though some of them never made it to the car.

Rick

[Rick Meredith]

I am Waiting for the Dual Chrome strip cars to come out LMAO

Well Shubee... we're waiting on you to start that look!

[Rick Meredith]

What gets me is that someone well known in the VW community will have worked on or owned a car for only a short time and somehow it is something special. I bet one of the big names could take any old car, screw a bunch of the "must have" parts on it, and sell it on a premium just because they built it.

--louis

I call this the Boyd effect... Just cuz Boyd built it it's big $$$ even thought his stuff sux and is ugly.

The funny thing about his TV show is that it shows how 1/2 assed his cars are. I think that's the worst advertisement for his biz.

Sorry to digress.

[Rick Meredith]

Now, can owning a famous or well known car give the owner extra street cred? 

--louis

I don't think so... does owning a painting make you an artist?

Example... we've talked about Mark Dean's '67. Brian reminded me that John Dobson bought the car from Dean. Do we remember who owned it or who built it?

[Jim Ratto]

Now, can owning a famous or well known car give the owner extra street cred? 

--louis

I don't think so... does owning a painting make you an artist?

Example... we've talked about Mark Dean's '67. Brian reminded me that John Dobson bought the car from Dean. Do we remember who owned it or who built it?

 

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

I am Waiting for the Dual Chrome strip cars to come out LMAO

Well Shubee... we're waiting on you to start that look!

Yoy Never Know Cant make up my mind to use a set of early and late moldings? two sets of Early? Or two sets of Late Also thinking or using the Bette Front Floor Mats all the way Around as Mudflaps ?   Might Start My Own New Look LMAO

[Rick Meredith]

I am Waiting for the Dual Chrome strip cars to come out LMAO

Well Shubee... we're waiting on you to start that look!

Yoy Never Know Cant make up my mind to use a set of early and late moldings? two sets of Early? Or two sets of Late Also thinking or using the Bette Front Floor Mats all the way Around as Mudflaps ?  Might Start My Own New Look LMAO

I was expecting you to use these mudflaps!



The Shubee Look... pretty soon HVW will have a yearly special on it.

[JS]

A lot of people follow the "leader". "Monkey see - monkey do". This is not a cal-look thing, it´s a human thing IMO.

[wolfswest]

I think this kind of follows the same thoughts I had back when I posted the bit about "what's the big deal about who owned a car?"

Right?

Jim,

not 100 % but you get my point...  Our hobby is not a competition.   We are here to enjoy our cars and make some friends along the way.  In the first place you built your car for yourself but it is always nice that some guys say: hey, nice car!  If you say that you don't giva a f*ck about others their opinion you are a lyer, everybody enjoy the kind words of somebody else, even it's just one person...  you WILL feel good if somebody gives you the thumbs up.  And I think you will receive the thumbs up much faster and more if you are "famous" in the game.

My point is if somebody pops up in a very nice clean car he will receive recognition but if a "well known guy" appears in the same car he will get far more recognition etc than the other guy.

And Shubee, I think the mudflaps will be a hit, DO IT!    

[Jim Ratto]

I agree. I think a guy should get a thumbs up for a number of rather fundamental reasons.... not solely related to the car, but more him and how he interacts and contributes to the hobby.

[louisb]

 And I think you will receive the thumbs up much faster and more if you are "famous" in the game.

Sure, if Frenchy built another Cal-looker it would be in every magazine out there. Why, because everyone knows he builds great cars. You would expect it to be of a high caliber compared to some Joe Shmoe off the street.  Now if I were to build a car, even if it had the same quality and  attention to detail, it wouldn't get the same notoriety. Why? Because no one knows who the 'ell Louis Brooks is. (Plus I live out in the boonies of Florida so who is ever going to see it.) That is just to be expected.

--louis

[nicolas]

well that is the reason why you should follow what YOU like!

just to tell the story about my car (as it was mentioned here) i got the car NOT knowing it was a 'special' model and started to work on it. and i wanted it to look more or less like a porsche, because to me a fastback is a low bug and a high porsche... so i went ahead and removed the trim, parking light and in the end the reflector at the back. as for the colour i was hated the seasand because when i bought it it was standing next to a safari beige car and that looked a lot better in the sun... (yes i was naive at the time...) so i decided then and there that it would not have that paint. when i finally got around chosing the paint my eye fell on the colour it has now. but i was looking for something like a metallic seasand. but that just looks plain wrong and cheap. so i went back a little later and was flipping through hundreds off samples again and my eye was caught by the same metallic brown. so the guy says to me 'what do YOU like?' and i said the brown, so he asks me why i didn't paint it like that? i had allready bought the interiour some years before and matched it to the paint and it did come out nice. a lot darker and different from what i had in mind but very nice indeed. and (very important) i was about to spend a small fortune on getting the bodywork done and painted so i opted for what i liked best. true metallic paints are a PITA and come not cheap, but it is still what i love most as colour for my car.
so a year later i have to make up my mind on rims and i was leaning towards a set off riviera's (which are some off my favorites today), but that didn't happen. i passed this set up on one occasion and that was the swapmeet off Mol. and a lot off people did... they were laying next to the exit off the big hall and everybody who came there that weekend passed them by and didn't buy them. they were in fact snatched up by a guy who buys and sells a lot off stuff for a pretty cheap sum. i passed them as well as they where too ugly and why the hell would i like 8 spokes there are allready enough off those in the world. i did not know the difference between real ones or aftermarkets at that point... so years later i go for the first time to BBT, and i have become a callook adict. i really like the looks and KS' s bible is indeed my bible as well. good gossip and nice whalhalla. so i have been looking around for rims that fit 4spoke type3's that don't have too much offset. and what do i find there, a set off real 8 spokes. they happen to be in very good shape and are even half an inch less wide as aftermarket ones and have a better offset. so i think about the freshly painted shell and i think about goldish rims and i think i must have seen the light that one time and chose to buy them a couple days later. and at that moment i DID like them, they just fitted this car, and till this day better then any other rim i can think off. so i am glad i got them (and came to my senses... more or less)

so yes it is in the end a car that has a big callook influence,but no it is not made to fit in into anything really. it is the car that i wanted it to be and yes i have bought the flat4 steeringwheel that looks like an empi steeringwheel, and yes it has a hurstshifter because i saw it in Hector's car, so i have been under the influence off the 'trends' but i have learned that the parts i like best about this car are the parts i completely chose myself.

and as a sidenote, back in the days when there was noone to follow or copy there were some very very nice callookcars and they came from guys who put a little off this and that together and came up with something they liked. and it is the same now. only it gets a little different (harder) as everything has been done (almost). say me one thing that is without a doubt callook and essential and i bet you that there is a car that hasn't got that, and still is very callook.

anyway, great topic, and i hope you chose the thing that you like best and i am sure that you will come up with a very nice car in the end (if not for most off us, i sure hope for YOU)

take care and i am sorry for the long post.

[wolfswest]

Nicolas,

No need to excuse you for the long post.  We all like reading stories and it's a nice story how you managed to get your car and look together!  keep those stories coming!

Dem