Tabla de contenidos para October 2020 en VolksWorld

It’s with much sadness I have to announce that the 2020 VolksWorld Show, which had been re-scheduled for 3-4 October, has now been cancelled. We were really hoping the Covid-19 situation would be under control and that regulations regarding large gatherings would be lifted, but it seems six months just isn’t long enough for things to return to the kind of normality we’d hoped for. Sure, restrictions are slowly easing but, at the end of the day, the safety and well being of visitors is our number one priority, hence we have decided to cancel the 2020 event and will instead concentrate our efforts to ensure the 2021 show is a fitting return to form for the UK’s biggest and best indoor VW showcase event. So put the date of…

When you’ve owned a vehicle for 25 years, it’s inevitable you’ll have amassed a string of memories and stories about your time together. Some great, some perhaps not so great. However, we’re fairly sure Chris Lambourne and his ’61 Devon Deluxe have been through more than most together, as the crazy tales are practically endless. The relationship between man and Van in this case is tight (like a tiger) and includes countless messy party weekends, a record for the fastest street driven Camper at Santa Pod, numerous trophies and awards, weekends spent surfing and cruising around Cornwall… Oh, and flipping over, sliding on the roof and bursting into flames. In other words, this is no show pony, it’s a world class contender for the title of ultimate show ’n’ go…

“The 1500 Club way is 100% stock, and as detail correct as possible” Some people just have a knack of turning up the good stuff. You know the people, they seem to be able to sense where the good cars are, and find rare parts most of us could only ever dream of. The kind of stuff that never seems to be advertised, and doesn’t really need to be. You could see this as luck, but really it’s about time served in the VW scene, building connections and friendships. The owner of the Pacific Blue 1962 Type 34, Pedro Sainz, could definitely be viewed as one of those ‘connected’ people, but he’s also not afraid to put some seriously hard graft in on his projects, and still finds time to…

“a tribute to the Mach1 Beetle, albeit based around a period Manx Buggy” If you’re a fan of period tuning, you’ll no doubt have heard all about the EMPI GTV Beetle, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing much about the Mach 1 Beetle, which was only sold in Belgium in the mid-1960s. “a series of tuned, modified cars that would be available to purchase brand new via a VW dealership” The special edition Mach 1 was the brainchild of D’Ieteren Freres SA, the official importer and distributor of Volkswagens in Belgium at the time. Much like the GTV, which in turn was inspired by the products of select American car dealers in the States such as Grand Spaulding Dodge, Royal Pontiac and Baldwin, Nickey and Yenko Chevrolet, the concept…

All manner of weird and wonderful contraptions have been created using Volkswagen parts over the years. Their robust mechanicals, legendary reliability and simple technology are just some of the reasons so many manufacturers of the obscure have raided the VW parts bin over the years. From aeroplanes to snowploughs, and everything and anything in between, someone, somewhere has stuffed a VW engine into their builds to make them live. This MIAG Motorkarren falls firmly into the anything in between category. It goes without saying, the MIAG is no road car. Only a crazy person would even consider taking this thing out on the Queen’s highway. Even then, it would have to be registered and made road legal to do so, which is more hassle than it’s worth. So, what the…

While it is fantastic to see government guidelines are now opening up the possibility that indoor events can run from the beginning of October, it is with regret we have decided to cancel this year’s VolksWorld Show, due to be held over the weekend of 3-4 October 2020. It has been a truly challenging time for everyone, and we have continued to work with colleagues in the events industry, venues, commercial partners, clubs and customers to ascertain the best path forwards. Ultimately, for the safety of everyone involved, we concluded it is better to make a decisive call now than carry on with a high degree of uncertainty as to whether or not we could run the event in a safe and enjoyable way for everyone involved. We’d like to…

Chris has owned a bunch of cool rides over the years, but his current fleet is little short of a dream collection for any hardcore petrolhead. Of course, the ’61 Devon is a keeper, and he has no plans to part with his ’59 Cabriolet Beetle (featured in the July 2019 issue) any time soon but, air-cooled VWs aside, Chris has a penchant for high-horsepower late models, too. Having recently sold a wild, 900+bhp Audi RS6, he now ‘only’ has a bright yellow, 435bhp RS4, a tuned 2016 RS6 and a Porsche Macan GTS. Oh, and let’s not forget his stunning, low mileage, ‘racing yellow’ Porsche GT3, which only comes out to play on sunny days, or for the occasional track day. Like we said, pretty much the dream collection…

It’s not uncommon for people into old cars to have a side hustle. You know, you get interested in a certain niche and, to fund your habit, figure out a way to make some money from it to support your hobby. For Pedro, a kitchen cabinet maker by trade, his hustle was roof racks for Type 3s. Around his day job, he found time to design and manufacture superb quality racks, which were sought after by Type 3 owners all over the world. That helped finance his Type 3 hobby. The problem comes when the hustle starts to impede on the hobby, or the rest of your life. For Pedro, that point came when, 500 or so units in, and faced with an order of 40 racks from Bill &…

From the beginning, Mach 1 Beetles were designed to be performance models, rather than just dress-up kits, so Belgium’s VW importer, D’Ieteren, did a deal with Oettinger for supply of Okrasa TSV (Touring Sport Veloce) 1300/34 engines for all the cars in the series. Oettinger Kraftfahrtechnische Spezial Anstalt (later abbreviated to Okrasa) was the name of the business founded by Gerhard Oettinger in 1951. It specialised in the production and development of high-performance parts for VW engines. Before long, coachbuilders such as Rometsch and Dannenhauer and Stauss adopted the Okrasa brand as the Porsche-like performance added the element of sportiness to their creations that was lacking with the stock VW powerplant. There were various tuning options available over the years, some using single-port heads but with dual carburettors, others with…

I was lucky enough to lay my peepers on the French brochure that came with this preposterous beast of burden, but will hold my hands up and admit my schoolboy French isn’t up to snuff, so I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Thinking there might be something to it, though, I painstakingly typed the French marketing blurb into Google translate, and it states the following about the MIAG Motorkarren (excuse the abysmal translation): “For the transport of material in the warehouses and workshops of the FFA; transport trucks of two tons of payload are delivered to the French army. “This photograph shows a MIAG type MK 200F truck powered by a Volkswagen 1192cc four-stroke engine. “The engineer perceives similar two-ton EK 2002 type trolleys but with electric propulsion.…

I’ve always owned Beetles, my fascination with them starting at a very young age. But one particular Beetle I owned had a very special personal connection. It started in 2005 when my uncle, who I admired greatly, tragically passed away. I’d seen a Beetle advertised on eBay near me and, while I was sure the auction would end up running way beyond my meagre budget, I just had to go and see it. The owner, an elderly gentleman, had passed away and his daughter was selling the car, which was immaculate, with just 20,000 original miles on the odometer. When I drove it, the dash lights kept going on and off, and so did the headlights. It was a sign I had to have it, a real life Herbie! I…

There was a time when the February issue of VolksWorld meant just one thing – California Look cars (a tradition we aim to resurrect, by the way) and, in the year 2001, we ran a feature on a very nice pale blue ’66 Bug belonging to Philip Steenackers. Philip explains: “Having finished the Beetle, I was keen to start a new project and, after seeing a picture in an old copy of [Dune Buggies &] Hot VWs of a guy cruising the highway with his arm hanging out of the window of an early Ghia, I wanted to be that guy.” What followed was a 1,200km round trip from his home in Merchtem, Belgium to visit the late Axel Stauber in Germany, who at the time had a couple of…

“I had no intention of changing the overall look when my dad sold it to me, but I definitely wanted to give it a modern twist” Is it feasible that all classic Volkswagen owners are people that were just pain-in-the-arse kids who didn’t have a hobby and were not all that good at sport? I’ve long bemoaned the lack of football conversation amongst my VW friends, and a lot of them are still pain-in-the-arse grown-ups, so I’m starting to wonder if Jordan Hale’s description of his own path to air-cooled ownership is a much more familiar one? “I think it might be!” he laughs. “I hated sport at school, but I did have an interest in classic cars. “Randomly, one day my old man decided to pick up a copy…