dune buggies and hotVWs September 2020

Dear Readers, Advertisers, and Fans of hotVWs Magazine from all over the world, I am sure many people will agree with my statement: What the hell is going on with the world? Here in Southern California, as I am writing this column on July 1st, we have another stay-at-home order due to a drastic increase in Covid-19 cases. This is a huge bummer. I feel like we have to start all over again. I didn’t expect to write about another update related to this crazy situation in this column. We have already missed out on most summer VW events; still, time flies as usual and we finished the September 2020 issue. We have only three months left before 2021, when looking at the year 2020 magazine calendar. So far, 2020…

Poncho has said that a group of his friends would like to buy the Tar Babe, but not the motor or transmission! What? I exclaimed: “No way”. I’m not hauling the motor and trans back even though the offer was very good, you know, a lot of pesos! So, Poncho says: Let me see what we can do. A little later over some more Cervasas, Poncho has put together a deal and one guy got the motor, and he and Armando Gomez will take the car with gearbox. Altogether, it comes to about twenty two thousand dollars! Almost twice what Mike Hunsaker and I paid for Tar Babe! But what about the trailer, which hasn’t fared well on the journey… Oh, and also belongs to Mark Thurber back home, taking…

To a Certain Degree When it comes to the advance of a Bosch 009 distributor, how far can you safely go with the number of degrees? I have a 1776 engine with 9.3-to-1 compression. I used an Engle W-110 cam, 041 heads with high-rev single springs, Chromoly retainers, Kadron carbs reworked by Kaddie Shack... I measured the jets but they sent them blank. They also sent 32 venturis. I am tempted to try an 034 to fix the surge below half throttle. The header cooled 30 degrees with 3 degrees of timing. The motor wanted more according to my vacuum gauge. What do you think? Jeff Johnson Irving, TX Jeff, on a small engine like your 1776cc, I personally wouldn’t change the venturis from the standard 28s. A normal main…

We said farewell to a family member today. Wild Thing was a Mexican-built 1974 Volkswagen Thing, which we adopted into our family in May of 2007. His former foster father was Charlie Van Allen, a dear friend and fellow MVVC member, who lived in the tiny hamlet of Caro, in Michigan’s Thumb Region. Charlie was a Social Services Case Worker, and a huge Volkswagen enthusiast. He already owned a white VW Thing, named Thing One, so perhaps he was looking for his Dr. Seuss companion when he adopted Wild Thing in 2001. He set to work safari’ing him to match his other Serengeti-Safari-themed vehicle, his Bay Window Sunroof Bus. He added a vinyl padded roll bar with netting attached, partially covered by a canvas tonneau cover (as needed), lowered the…

From the Fatherland – that's the name of my column. And that's precisely where I want the news to come from. But what to do if there is nothing to report on? COVID-19 simply paralyzed everything. Everything public at least. New trends? I cannot determine any without events. New cars? Many are in the works, but almost everyone keeps them covered up for a bigger impact during next year’s show season. Here is what I know: A lot is happening in the scene. When you talk to the German parts dealers, engine builders, restoration companies and workshops, you notice that apparently almost everyone who owns an air-cooled VW is investing money is his/her car. No company I know, which has anything to do with old Volkswagens, complains about a lack…

When I was in high school, my neighbor across the street had one of those VW “window” Buses. I counted all the panes of glass and came up with 27. I knew they were called by a number of windows, and they weren't called “27 windows”. What I did not know at that time, but would soon learn is that the three panes of glass in the cab door’s window frame counts as just one window. Thus the Bus was actually a 23-window. The number seems to first come from VW advertising and sales literature, where they would frequently mention the number of windows. This month, we will talk about the windows. Of course, different models and years have different window arrangements. The first Transporters had just four windows for…