CSC Blog

Hopefully, you’re not too burned out on all the VW stuff I’ve put on the blog this week.   I know I’ve posted a lot of car stuff on a motorcycle blog, but it was easy to get excited about these cool little cars.   I had a lot of fun this past weekend at the VW drags, and VWs are photogenic.    When Steve asked me about going to the VW drags, he didn’t have to ask me twice…cool cars and racing?   You bet!   Where do I sign up?

This was our booth at the Irwindale event…

Action in the booth was brisk…Steve bought along a couple of California Scooters and as you might imagine, the bikes drew a ton of attention.   The same folks who like VWs also like CSC motorcycles.   It might have something to do with the fact that both V-Dubs and Mustangs were popular in the ’50s and ’60s.   Or maybe its just that people appreciate the inherent coolness of both.

I bought a VW Beetle back in 1973 and I still believe it was one of the best cars I ever owned.   My Dad thought I was nuts when I told him I was going to buy a VW (you know, the Buy American thing).     Dad felt that way right up until the day I brought it home and we all went out to dinner in it.   That little Beetle was well built, it was comfortable, it had more room than Dad’s Chrysler, and it was fun.

When I left for my very first secret mission (and my first trip ever to Asia), Dad offered to drive the VW while I was gone.  You know, just to keep the battery charged and the carb from gumming up.    Funny thing, though…when I got back a year later my little VW had a CB radio, an 8-track cassette player, and a lot more miles on the clock.   Dad did not want to give that car up.   The Chrysler, on the other hand, had stale gas and a dead battery.   Go figure.

So anyway, I fell in love with Beetles.   I never had another one, but the trip to the VW meet this weekend sure has me thinking about them again.  I love their simplicity, the air-cooled boxer engine, and the look.  And I certainly saw some nice ones this weekend.   Irwindale was awash in VWs…I’ll bet more than 500 Beetles showed up.   Some were stock, most were customized, and all were muey cool.

Okay, enough about my unrequited Beetle love affair.   Let’s take a look at some of these beauties!

Here’s one of many with custom paint…

And here’s another with a custom paint job.   I really like this one.   Does the theme look familiar?

You bet…it’s our very own Sarge replicated in a VW.   Take a look at Steve’s personal California Scooter, and then take another look at the Beetle above…

If you like bright colors and pastels, you would have loved the variety of VWs on display this weekend…some were bright, some were subdued, some were shiny, some showed off their patina, and all were stunning…

The Bugs were there in lots of colors…they kind of reminded me of jelly beans.   These are cool cars and I was having a lot of fun taking pictures of them.

Check out this split window VW…I don’t know a lot about these very early ones, except that they are rare and very cool…

Do you remember the Baja Bug craze from the late ’60s?   There were a few of these dune runners in Irwindale, too…

And then there were the rat jobs and the hot rods…

Wow, lots of photos, folks.   If you want to see more VWs, quite a few of these pictures are going to be showing up on the Pro-One site, along with a lot of others I haven’t posted here.  

Okay, so enough with the VWs.  This is it for a while on the CSC blog…except, of course, for my signature self portrait…

I’m headed over to the plant later today and I’ll grab some California Scooter photos for you.   If you want to see more VW stuff, hop on over to the Pro-One web site or to our Pro-One Facebook page (and if you go to the Pro-One Facebook page, please give us a “like’).

Ride safe and stay tuned!

I recently received this nice note from my good friend Carl in Missouri, with interesting inputs about Clint Walker’s Rickman motorcycle and the Dave Mungenast Museum…

Hi Joe,

Clint Walker (the actor from the TV series “Cheyenne”) was in England filming the movie “The Dirty Dozen.”

While there he noticed and appreciated the work of the road racing Rickman frames.  He ordered one made in the style of the California desert sleds and powered by the famous Matchless 800cc Typhoon motor.  

As you can see it is a perfect example of a “Hot” sled.

We’re proud to have it on display in the Dave Mungenast Museum here in St. Louis, where we also love the custom creations from Steve and CSC. 

Carl

Hey, thanks very much, Carl.   I don’t have to tell you just how cool the Mungenast Classic Cars and Motorcycles Museum is, and as a point of reference I found this very cool article in Motorcycle Classics magazine featuring this wonderful spot.   Next time I’m out your way we’ll have to visit it together! 

Folks, if you’ve never been to the Mungenast Museum, it’s a “must see” item the next time you’re in St. Louis.  Dave Mungenast was one of the all time motorcycle greats, and the museum is his way of sharing his passion with the world.  The book about his life is absolutely outstanding, and I strongly urge you to buy it.  It’s a great read!

Nope, this blog isn’t about Muhammed Ali, Tyson, Sugar Ray, Camacho, or any of those guys.   We’re gearheads, and the focus today is on boxer engines.

The boxer engine configuration is one that has been around for a long time and it has powered quite a few cars, motorcycles, and aircraft.   The boxer name presumably comes from the horizontal motion of the pistons…they jab out (and back and forth) like a boxer’s fists.   It’s a cool designation.

If you’re a rider you probably know of the twin boxer engine in BMW motorcycles.    Other motorcycles that have used the boxer configuration include the German Zundapp, the Honda Goldwing and Valkyrie, the Japanese Marusho, and several Chinese and Russian BMW clones (the Russian Ural and at least four Chinese outfits making BMW copies).  Hey, Harley even made a boxer during World War II…it was a copy of the BMW boxer, and it would have gone into rate production had it not been for a vehicle the Army found more useful (and that would be the Jeep).

The boxer engine concept found a home in more than a few automobiles, too.   Consider the one we’re probably most familiar with…the VW Beetle.   Did you know that the Chevy Corvair had a six-cylinder boxer?   And that Subaru has both four and six cylinder boxers in its wonderful cars?  Let’s not forget Porsche…they’ve probably created the most advanced boxer engines in the world (although in my opinion Subaru’s engineering is right there with Porsche’s).

Airplanes, too, use the boxer configuration.  There are so many I couldn’t begin to describe them.     Google “airplane boxer engines” and you’ll see what I mean.

Yep, the boxer has found a home in all of these vehicles…but for our focus here, I’ll turn back to the VW drags this past weekend.   What’s cool about this photo collection is the extent to which these V-Dub owners have turned their four-cylinder boxer engines into chrome-laden jewels.   And one more thing that’s cool about the bling on these engines:   If you see any goodies you like, our Pro-One sister company can provide it.

Enjoy the glitter, folks!

Onward and upward, boys and girls…I just received a nice photo and note from my good buddy Carlos.  The photo shows a very cool Rickman desert sled with a Matchless motor, so stay tuned! 

And yes, I still have a photo or two to show you from the VW meet in Irwindale this past weekend!

Ride safe.

More VW stuff, folks!   This time it’s the vans.   They sure were pretty.   I don’t know much about VW vans, so this blog entry consists mostly of photos.   Some of the front foldout windows were cool, as were the vans with a big locomotive-like headlight (were these factory options?).   And make sure you take note of the 23-window van…those really command a premium.

First, a quick video…

And a bunch of interesting VW van photos…

The next series of photos will be engine studies, and I’ll probably post those tomorrow night.   I’m off on a one-day secret mission tomorrow, so it will be tomorrow night before I post those.

I’ll tell you what:  That day at the VW drag races was a real treat.   Like I said, the photo ops were awesome.    I hope you can see that from the photos we’ve been featuring on the CSC blog.

Later, folks…

I guess the bottom line in watching the VW drag races is this:   I had no idea you could make a VW perform like I saw yesterday.    As a guy who grew up around small block Chevrolets, GTOs, and Mopars, I thought the VW thing was just sort of cute.  You know, they could make them faster, but they’d never really be fast.   Boy, was I ever wrong!

The cars I saw yesterday were nothing short of mind boggling.   I didn’t get to watch all of the racing, but I saw one VW hit 113 mph from a standing start in 1/8 mile.   And before these cars ran, they all did burnouts that were just awesome.  I had no idea.

Here’s one of the burnouts I saw.   Some of these cars actually got sideways…

Another thing I thought was impressive was watching the VWs launch.   Many of them wheelied off the line.   Wow! 

That 300mm Nikon lens sure did its job yesterday.   You can really reach out there with it.

The cars were just flat intriguing.   I guess it’s all part of being a gearhead…if it has wheels and a motor, folks are just going to fuss with the thing until it looks and performs like they want it to.   Corvettes, Ferraris, California Scooters…you know the drill.    VWs are no exception…

Wheely bars.  On a VW Beetle.   Who’d have thought? 

This fellow had a GoPro mounted on his car.   I’d sure like to see the video…

More striking VWs….these cars sure were nice.

Some of the VWs looked stock (they have different classes) and some were all out race cars. 

Here’s one that looks closer to stock…but the tires are a dead giveaway…

They even had VW station wagons racing…and this puppy was quick!

Here’s another VW drag racing video…if you can’t make out the time at the very end (on the board), this one ran 112 mph and change in just one-eighth of a mile!

That’s it for now, folks…the next set of photos will be of VW vans…another cool area with lots of eye candy!

You’ve no doubt concluded that I had a lot of fun shooting VW photos this morning…and you, of course, are correct.

Steve, TK, and I were almost the very first ones at the Irwindale track this morning…we were there at least an hour before sunup and it was cold.   It was foggy, too, which is something we live with here in So Cal this time of year…we call it the marine layer (I guess because the fog comes in from the Pacific Ocean).  

The VWs started arriving not too long after we did, and as soon as we had enough light I started snapping photos.   Like I said in the last post, this next set shows some of the interiors…and folks, these VW dudes and dudettes are seriously into their Bugs.   You’ll see…check out these restorations (and in one case, an intact rat job…)…

One nice thing about that early morning marine layer….we had nice, even lighting.   It’s the best possible weather for capturing cool images, and most of these were with my trusty Nikon 28mm lens.  

Here’s the interior of a really nice convertible Bug…

That one above is just awesome.

Here’s another cool one…

The next photo shows the rat job I mentioned.   This one is going for a well-worn patina look, and I think the owner succeeded.   The steering wheel and the seats look new, but everything else appears to be original…

And in case you were wondering, here’s the Bug the above interior resides in…

I like it.   You can see the fog behind the Beetle…and it actually had lifted quite a bit by the time I shot this photo.

Oh, here’s another cool one…this is the interior of the VW carrying that Pee Wee Herman toy you see below.   You can also see this VW behind the guys with the rusty bicycle in our last blog entry…

Folks, this is very cool stuff.   It was almost like being in an American Pickers episode.

Here’s the interior in a VW-powered James Dean Porsche replica car.  It’s just like the one TK shot for our blog a day or two ago.   Very cool stuff…

And our last interior shot…this Bug was parked right across from the CSC/Pro-One Booth, and it was gorgeous.   Bright colors really make these Beetles come alive, and the interior on this one was spectacular…

There was just so much cool stuff out there today it was hard to select what was most exciting (that’s why I’m bombarding you good folks with multiple blogs on the day’s photo ops). I have a few more coming…one on engines, one on the cars, one on miscellaneous goodies for sale at the swap meet, one on VW vans, and one on the VW dragsters. I sure hope you like VWs, because I have a lot of cool stuff to share with you.  You can be sure I’ll include some goodies on our favorite motorcycle, too…but for the next day or so, stand by for more good VW stuff!

Folks, there were so many photo ops at the VW drags and swap meet today that I think I’ll try to categorize some of my favorite shots.   This one shows some of the toys on display…

There were a lot of other cool things there today, too…so keep coming back for more!   I think I’ll do VW interiors next…

One of many fun aspects of the VW drag races:   Trick or treat!

A lot of the young ladies there were dressed for Halloween.     Check out Kaylee on a 250cc P-51 California Scooter!

 Here’s another…

Boo!

…and Boo! again…

That’s it for now…I’ll be posting more photos from the VW meet later!

…we grabbed this photo?

The drag races were just awesome this morning…and I had my 300mm lens with me to capture some of the excitement…

More to come, boys and girls…

Our good buddy Gordon went for a ride with us a while back and he posted this dynamite video…

Gordon uses a GoPro video cam, and I just may have to take a look at one of them…I really like their wind noise cancellation software. It lets you hear the engine a lot better than my camera.

Thanks, Gordon!  Dynamite cinematography and awesome riding!