Pete Rides Again

Some pictures of Pete's recently acquired new ride, a '66 Standard Bug.


Wasn't too easy to analyze the car in all that snow :)


The '66 Standard as it arrived.


After an hour of melting things were looking better. The car turned out more solid than anyone expected. Probably doesn't require any welding to pass the MOT.

Time to get cracking..

In Wallace&Gromit speak; time to get cracking..


Few weeks to season start and some tasks still remain. Biggest thing is the decision about which wheels to run.


New interior is in the plans as the current TMI kit just doesn't cut it.

Alhoracing's Mercury Marauder

If I have had to make a guess in January '09 about who among your closest buddies would buy a full-size Ford this year I would have never guessed right :) Well rust-free mid 60's car with freshly built big block, why not.. Reminded me about my cousins' ex white 390 cid '62 Galaxie.

On the move

Probably one of the last nice, chilly but sunny and dry, days of Fall, so last moment of moving the 'Vert back home to Helsinki. Didn't have time to lower the rear but lowered the front somewhat from the MOT/technical inspection in order to get the tracking closer to where it was originally adjusted for the home drive. Strange feeling to have working heater too in Volkswagen for a change :)


The way 'Vert was moved from Kaitsu's garage to my (in Doctor Evil's speak) secret lair. It was kinda "interesting" to follow that dude through the smaller country roads as the highway was closed due to crashed tanker truck.


On the way from Kupla Kopla garage to Kaitsu's garage for top upholstery.

Better late than never :)

Driving the 'Vert first time since 2003.


Off to the our equivalent of MOT tests.


Well, saved some MOT-mans' time for rust checking :)

Decisions, decisions..

Gas Burners vs. Fuchs

While doing the last tasks before the car will receive the new cabriolet top had some time to play with 901-wheels.

Extreme VWs DVD #4

Didn't realize my '55 was in the Xtreme VWs #4 / EBI 1 DVD until some weeks ago. Here's a link to a trailer from Youtube.



Must have been these guys :)

Soldier.. eh.. solderer of fortune

I'm still in process of putting the 'Vert back together. I got a Wiring Works reproduction wiring loom via Powerhaus earlier in the Summer and that's going into the car at the moment (I can recommend John@Powerhaus for Volkswagen parts needs, very good service and fast delivery.)

I have drooled over neat wiring in photos and in shows (Foxy, Rick etc) but I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted and as much as I love neat custom wiring I wanted to have original style colour coding in wires.

So I bought the kit but I am not all that happy with it. As it is exact repro of the factory original for certain year it doesn't offer much alternative routing options nor there is just no extra wire and it is also put into heat shrunk tube. Would have been nicer if there had been little bit more DIY stuff left.


The spaghetti incident. The front 4-fuse box is bit messy.


Buddy from action-cars, Alhoracing, dropped by and we fitted the original 30hp into the engine bay. The rear suspension got sorted along with the extra weight :)

That small diameter 12 volt Porsche (thanks Mikko) generator caused little extra head scratching in dismantling the rear of the wiring loom and re-routing the wires to hidden regulator, as there was no nice way to mount the voltage regulator near the generator. I didn't neither manage to find a period correct looking generator mounted regulator.

Misc Cabriolet Stuff

Started assembling some easy parts to get the car look like a Beetle again :) Most of the parts I stored when teared the car apart now look like shit when compared with new paint, new repro parts and some NOS goodies. Damn..


NOS steering lock and proper NOS 6-wire indicator switch with powder coated steering column. I got very nice deal of powder coating various parts from Tmi Jouko Koli near Hyvink��. I was going to use my EMPI GT wheel, along with some NOS EMPI stuff like EZR shifter and wooden dashboard knobs etc, but not so sure anymore since the ivory looks very good against the red and would like to keep the number of different colours minimal.

We teared the old Cabriolet top apart yesterday since it also requires little bit of tweaking and new paint. The top frame was actually far better than I have thought, first such surprise in this project :) Since the amount of shit in my life is static, I wonder what other surprise I am going to face in near future..


I hadn't realized that the wooden top parts were originals in my car, they're bit busted though. The wooden part around the rear of the body was totally shot and it was a small miracle how it managed holding the rear of the top in place over the years. I was going to replace all wooden parts except the header bow but now also the quarter window facings look still usable. CSP parts that I had bought couple of years ago were also nice surprise qualitywise, or actually not, since CSP-stuff has't never let me down. Originals on the left, very good match in shape. (Thanks Helge!)

One task that I am not looking forward is polishing the better set of Earlies. I am going to use 4.5" and 5.5" combination.

My Cabriolet returned home

I am extremely pleased how my Cabriolet turned out in the end. Big thanks to Kari Kuusharju who did the hardest parts in the beginning of the project and Juhani Laaksonen who finished body work and painted the Cabriolet along with his brother Marko. Just awesome work!

Now lots of opportunities to me to screw up other's hard work while assembling the rest of it :)


Nicely tucked among my '55 Oval, action-cars Takis' 90's looker and Vilho's Sonderbus project.

This is what the cat meows..

Just came home from re-uniting the body to the pan.

More L452 Paprika

More shots from paint booth today..

Sneak preview..

The first coats of Paprika Red have now reached my '60 Cabriolet.

My Desperate Cabriolet Project

Getting there, slowly but surely..

Farewell Pasi!

Some shots from Pasi's farewell party held last week. Long-time Kupla Kopla garage and action-cars member Pasi decided to move to Sweden as building Kustoms is hell of a lot easier over there :)

I was glad to see the 30+ crowd of local Volkswagen guys and girls participating the party, especially certain "old-timers" among them.. Big thank you to Kurre for the photos.

Just like from the movie Christine..

Seeing Pasi's '58 Dodge in my rear-view mirror at morning rush hour reminded me about John Carpenter's movie Christine. (even though Christine was '58 Plymouth Fury, if I remember correctly). Had to change lanes before it ate the little Audi..

Now that I was corrected the Dodge Kingsway in question is import-only model and based on Plymouth body that is shorter than Dodge :-)

My Oval in Kassel Hills

One of my favourite photos this summer.. Too bad were driving in four car format and adjusted our speed according to the slowest one (and generally no hurry anywhere) but being able to really rip it up those hills would have been so cool :)

On the other had bewing up the engine on first 400kms of 2000+ km road trip wouldn't neither have been very smart..

Karmann Ghia Farm Find

Lowlight Karmann Ghia that friend of mine picked up today from farm in Southern Finland.. Lot of work but nice find, good luck with the project dude.

My '63

My ex-1963 Beetle (literally Export model :-) in harbour waiting for boat to UK along with Split Screen Panel. L390 Gulf Blue is one of my favourite OG colours and still like how that colour turned out.

Flashback: Alhoracing's Old School Cal Look Sedan

The first Finnish Old School Cal Look car built by Kari "Alhoracing" Alhonen in early to mid 90's. Kari visited VW Jamboree in California 1993 and that changed his Volkswagen orientation, off went his Sonderbus (Samba) project and 1302 Cabriolet. He acquired this newly painted '61 from Make Railo. The '61 became '62 look-a-like with red brick coloured interior, it is pretty obvious which DKP car had made the impression.

The first iteration round had Sprint Stars and lasted for few seasons, until in 1997 Kari bought set of MWS fake Berms from Kuplapaja (I got mine from same batch back then) and in 2001 car was updated with Gas Burners.

The '61 served all year daily driver.
1995, and times were changing, 12-second stroker engined Old School Cal Look car is challenging the 80's Looker.