dune buggies and hotVWs September 2023

I am writing this Semaphore column a day before July 4th, just after returning from Medford, Oregon, where I covered The Volks Group Summer Showdown 1 drag race event. I have one more weekend to go, concluding my VW event marathon. Over the past six consecutive weekends, I have attended 11 events (including one in Germany), totaling 17 days spent at the shows, including the one we hosted. I am still overwhelmed by everything I have experienced. My VW event marathon started with Bugorama Sacramento #89 during Memorial Day weekend. This is the oldest running VW event in the USA, dating back to 1978. The venue, a large open field at Sacramento Raceway, has remained unchanged for the past five decades. The drag race, car show, and massive swap meet…

Oil Wants Out Hi Jon, I recently built a 36hp engine using a Wolfsburg Okrasa kit and a 69.5mm stroker crank. It runs smoothly, but I’ve noticed some oil coming out from the crank pulley and distributor shaft, indicating high engine case pressure. What recommendations do you have for reducing the engine case pressure? Jason Palmer San Diego, CA When you see oil vapor coming from the crank pulley and distributor shaft, yes, it does mean that there is more crankcase pressure than normal. This could simply be caused by your rings not being fully broken in yet, or possibly the ring gaps not being staggered properly during installation. One simple thing that you could do is run a vent hose from the oil filler up to one of the…

The air-cooled Volkswagen Beetles and Buses are iconic vehicles and, because of this, are pretty much not used as daily drivers. They have become collector cars and, in many instances, are not (or barely) driven now. I’m old enough to remember when my VWs were daily drivers. When I was in my teens through thirties, I would drive my VW Bus to the beach for a little surf safari or drive my Beetle out Friday night on a date, or just to hang out with friends. As time went on, a number of things changed, the first being rising value, along with declining supply as production halted. I think of VWs as different owner groups. First are patina, a new wave name for rust. Some patina car owners even go…

Do you know that feeling? You did everything to get something started, make it grow and successful, and all of a sudden you hit some unforeseen problems. Now there are two paths you can take. Give up or fight for what you developed. The story of Andreas Ruppert, the man behind the Air-cooled Race Weekend, belongs to the latter. Let’s go back to 2021. ARW (Air-cooled Race Weekend) always took place in Meppen, a district town in the northwest of Germany. It started out as a one day event in 2018, but it grew into a full weekend show within a year. The race course in Meppen is a 1.34 miles long, almost flat, not too fancy, but not boring either. A perfect venue for the 100 or so air-cooled…

After an especially long and arduous spring, we were excited to finally kick off car show season here in the Midwest with the 35th Annual Michigan Vintage VW Festival in Frankenmuth! This is the second year the club has held the show concurrently with the town’s annual Bavarian Festival in June, and it was an even greater success than its inaugural year, drawing more spectators than ever before! Saturday’s car show drew over a hundred fabulous Volkswagens, both vintage and newer, many of them with incredible stories all their own. One such heartwarming story was the beautiful blue 1973 Super Beetle Autostick that was much beloved by its owner, Judy Zehnder Keller, until her passing last October at the age of 77. Judy was one of Frankenmuth’s legendary businesswomen, the…

The VW show season is in full swing as I write this article. Behind me, the past few weeks have been an amazing array of VW events all across southern California. I know I should not complain about how many shows there are to attend. It is an amazing blessing to be in an area where the car people can come out and play together so often. My VW of choice to bring to the events this year is an obvious one if you are following my column. The Brubaker Box has been cruising all over to the shows and I have been having a blast, sharing it with others. At one recent event, however, a phone call changed everything and my time of play was cut short. My biggest…