OVWEC Newsletter April 2010

8/8/2019 OVWEC Newsletter April 2010

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OTAGO VOLKSWAGEN ENTHUSIASTS CLUB

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OTAGO VOLKSWAGEN

ENTHUSIASTS CLUB

NEWSLETTERApril 2010

THE ROAD TO THE NATIONALS


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THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

Hi every one and welcome to this special 2010 Volkswagen Nationals edition of our OVWEC

magazine. Many of our club members are heading to Nelson for this years event, which

was last held at this venue in 2002. Many of those who attended will remember the haul of

prizes we extracted that year and which now sit pride of place in our homes. Lets repeat

what we did in 2002!!

Our esteemed sectary and editor Mr Jim has requested that all attendees provide your

travel plans so that we can be aware of those travelling on the same day and also to

provide breakdown support, (breakdown support in a VW I hear you cry!?) these plans are

included in the following pages.

For those spending Easter at home or somewhere other than Nelson, I bring your attention

to our club event on the Saturday 10th, when we are hosting the Type 2 Tour BBQ at

Dunedin Holiday Park in Victoria Road, starting at 6.00pm where we will play host to 90

individuals travelling the south island on the 60th anniversary of the type 2. I encourage all

of you to come along for a sausy or three and a look at over 60 individual humble kombis,

many from the far reaches of the north. For catering purposes please email Jim by Monday

29th March if you would like to attend this event. Thanks go to those who will assist with

cooking and clean up.

So enjoy this special edition, stock up on the chocolate, fuel up the VW and see you all in

Nelson or on the 10th of April at Dunedin Holiday Park.

Dean Driver

President Otago VW Enthusiasts Club, Inc


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THE SMALL PRINT-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Club Officials :

Patron Ken BerryPresident Dean DriverSecretary/Editor Jim YoungTreasurer Chris Timms

Address PO Box 7101 Mornington, Dunedin The Otago Volkswagen EnthusiastsEmail [email protected] Club Inc meet on the first

Tuesday of each month at 7.30pm atWebsite www.vwotago.co.nz Robbies Bar & Bistro, South Dunedin-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As officials of the Club our first duty is to the members and that means organising things that you want to do,and being a focus for any requests, queries or suggestions you might have.

If there are any activities or events that you would like to suggest, items for the newsletter you might have, orif you cannot attend the monthly meetings, please contact Jim Young directly as follows :

Telephone 03 455 8729Post PO Box 7101, Mornington, DunedinEmail [email protected]

VW NATIONALS NELSON 2010

Well this is it, Volks, the event weve all

been waiting and preparing for. All those

months (and years!) of building, re-

building, modifying, testing, polishing and

detailing have you finished it now? Will it

get you there? Will it wow the crowds? Will

it get you a trophy? Or maybe youre just

going for the relaxing atmosphere, to kick

back in sunny Nelson and enjoy some

good down-to-earth Volkswagen

camaraderie, or some beautiful scenery onthe trip there and back, without having to

worry about whether you torqued those

con-rod bolts down tight enough!

Theres quite a crowd of us making our

way up there during the days before the

event, but heres who you can expect to

see either en route or from registration

onwards :


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2010 VW NATIONALS CLUB ATTENDEES AND TRAVEL

Wed 31 Mar Thu 01 April via Fri 02 April via Mon 05 April

Paul & Cathy Andresen 1300 Beetle Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - ChChBruce & Richelle Adams 1302S Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - ChCh

Chris & Pam Timms 1302S Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - W Coast

Jim & Elaine Young 1500 Beetle Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - W Coast

Marty van Elst Nana Beetle Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - ??

Clare Madden Nana Beetle Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - ??

Rory OBrien & Clare Fitzpatrick 1300 Beetle Dn - ChCh Geraldine ChCh - Nel Inland Nel - ChCh

Martin & Hazel van Raalte Bay Kombi Dn - ChCh ?? ChCh - Nel Kaik Nel - Temuka

Bill Bell & Pat Harrison 1500 Beetle Dn - ChCh ?? ChCh - Nel ?? Nel - ??

Don & April Woodward VW T25 Dn - ChCh ?? ChCh - Nel ?? Nel - ??

Shane Plusa 1302S Dn - ChCh - ChCh - Nel ?? Nel - ChCh

Ken & Margaret Berry Caravelle Dn - ChCh ChCh - Kaik - Kaik - Nel ?? Nel - Hanmer

Erana Plusa 1302LS Dn - ChCh ChCh - ChCh - Nel ?? Nel - ChCh

Grant Patrick & Daphne Finnie Vento Dn - Kaik Kaikoura - Nel - Nel - Nel - Hanmer

Dean and June Driver 1303 Cabrio Dn - ChCh ChCh - Nel - Nel - Nel - Hanmer

Adam Harvey 62 Pick-up Dn - Nel - Nel - Dn

Marie Lloyd Golf Cabrio ChCh - Nel ?? Nel - ??

60yr Commemorative Type 2 Tour South Island New Zealand April, 2010

The VW trip of a life-time with the love of your life

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WHAT IS BULLI STRASSE? Words and pics Jim Young

It was with some considerable trepidation that I stood in a dark alley way one drizzly night

in South Dunedin, waiting for my contact to show. A few brief hours ago Id been

introduced to someone who finally admitted to knowing at least some details of an alleged

treasure trove of VW artefacts hidden in a remote location somewhere in Otago.

Months ago Id heard mention, in hushed whispers, of a mythical and secret place called

Bulli Strasse, rumoured to be the resting place of a vast and priceless treasure in historical

VW antiquities, but whenever I probed local VW experts for details they either quickly

changed the subject or dismissed the notion as being pure fantasy. Id almost reached the

point of abandoning any hope of ever grasping this thin and whispy veil of conjecture and

having it solidify into reality, when by chance, through an entirely separate search for somealmost equally as elusive Type 3 VW brake parts, I met a man on a similar Type 3 quest who

claimed he could get me in.

I didnt hesitate. I quickly agreed to the arrangements and rendezvous, and only now,

leaning under the feeble glow of a downtown street lamp, were the potential dangers of

this situation dawning on me. Was it a trap? Had my contact staged our meeting so he

could draw me to a lonely and un-witnessed end? Had I been identified as a potential

threat by the dark and mysterious keepers of the place I sought? Had I got too close to the

truth? Was I being tested in order to prove my worth? The possibilities were endless!

Get in! During my reveries I had failed to notice a large, dark coloured people carrier pull

silently alongside where I stood. I was being beckoned into the rear seating area by its

driver, a large man whose identity I couldnt quite make out in the gloom of the interior. I

swallowed hard and opened the door.

Once inside there were no interior lights, and again I was having difficulty making out the

form of the man sitting across from me. The first rule of Bulli Strasse is, you do not talk

about Bulli Strasse, the shape before me growled. The second rule of Bulli Strasse is, you

doNOT

talk about Bulli Strasse!. He was definitely trying to make some kind of pointhere. Put this on, he snapped, and held out some sort of small woollen garment. It was a

ski mask, and as I reluctantly pulled it on I realised the eye holes had been sewn shut.

Dark silence was to be my only companion during the seemingly endless journey which

followed. I imagine some long and circuitous route had been planned, allowing me no hope

of ever re-tracing it again. Little did they know that they could have achieved exactly the

same result by leaving the ski mask off and simply heading away from State Highway 1 for a

few miles, such is the appalling state of my own sense of direction. In any case, one thing

was sure I wouldnt be making this trip a second time.


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Eventually I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness as the hours passed, until I

was suddenly awoken by a judder which shook the whole of the vehicle I was in. Bloody

speed humps!, I heard the driver remark, and as I looked round I realised that dawn had

broken and the ski mask was gone. We had arrived - there was the AA road sign whichproudly declared Bulli Strasse, and we were greeted by the most hospitable and friendly

hosts you could imagine, given cups of tea and biscuits and shown round, with great

enthusiasm, what is indeed a most bewildering collection of VW vehicles, parts, projects and

paraphernalia.

Is that a split window van being used as a chicken coop, with those little black hens laying

their little blue eggs in it? Is that really a razor-edge Karman Ghia at the back of that shed,

looking dusty but complete and rust-free? Is that a Type 3 Notchback sitting next to it in

similar condition and wearing Porsche Cookie Cutters, and a factory built wide-deck splitwindow Type 2 pick-up? A daily-driven Type 4 estate? One Caravelle, two, three? An old air-

cooled Chevrolet Corvair, split screen and bay window kombis sitting in that field? A

gleaming mint condition early Bay micro bus, sitting next to a similarly shiny Type 3 Variant?

Each paddock we passed, and each shed door that opened seemed full to bursting with

rare and desirable VW parts and vehicles! Look at all those Kombi models! Incredible!

The hours past like a blur, and later there was more tea and biscuits on the patio. It was

getting late now, and almost time to go, and I could feel the fatigue caused by the long

journey and excitement weighing down on me. I could barely keep my eyes open. Wait a

minute, somethings wrong! That last cup of tea, what had been in it? I looked up and sawblurry faces swimming in front of me, and as I tried to get up, dizziness overcame me. And

then darkness descended like a club.

When I came to I found myself sitting at that small table outside the back door of Robbies

Bar in South Dunedin, you know, the little spot there outside for the smokers, with the

garden furniture and planter boxes? It was as if Id been there the whole time and that this

had all been some kind of Speights-induced dream. I looked up and Ken Berry was

standing in front of me, the sun behind him forming a dazzling halo around his head, and I

had to squint to make him out properly. Hey Mr Jim, where have you been? You look like

youve had an adventure!

Yeah, I thought, but whos going to believe me? Wait! My camera! I looked down at the

table and there it was! Could the memory card still be intact? I quickly checked and it was

still there in its slot. Then I saw, sitting next to where the camera had been, an egg box. I

hadnt noticed it before. I carefully opened it, and inside the egg box were a dozen little

blue eggs, laid by little black hens, in the back of a rusty old VW van, still with bits of feather

and straw stuck to them. And that shade of blue suddenly looked very familiar to me. Could

it be the same as L31 Dove blue, the shade of blue used most often on early VW Type 2

commercials? Nah, it couldnt be.. could it?


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COMPETITION SPOT THE DELIBERATE MISTAKES

This highly desirable Beetle convertible is

currently for sale on Trade Me, and someone

has taken the sensible precaution of adding

both an oil filter and an oil cooler to their

performance engine set up.

Would anyone like to suggest how this

installation could be improved upon to even

further increase the engines longevity? A

chocolate fish for the longest list.


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READERS RIDES ERNIE RIDES AGAIN! Words and pics Rory OBrien

After bodywork, paint and general reassemblage, the final stage of Ernies restoration was

an interior freshen up and general faffing about. The original headliner was thankfullyalmost perfect and the vinyl around the cabin mostly ok, if a little grubby in places, so we

left all of that untouched.

The carpet pieces and rubber floormats however were really showing their 45 years of wear

and tear, mostly tear, and needed to go. In the absence of any decent reproduction

floormats for RHD vehicles, we decided to carpet throughout instead; this job was entrusted

to Warwicks Auto Interiors on Wynyard St. Warwick did a superb job here including nice,

original looking cloth bindings around the individual carpet pieces and openings.

Our original seats were also showing the signs of having valiantly upheld the buttocks of 45

years worth of occupants going about their travels and benefited from some attention. The

seat frames were blasted and repainted in some colour matched L466 silver beige enamel

(Rainbow Paints on Ward St did an excellent job matching this. Tip get more made up

than you think youll need!!!) and again Warwicks skills were called upon to fix up the

frames where a couple of welds had let go and to shore up the original coconut fibre seat

pads. A pair of natty vinyl covers (which almost, but not quite, matched the rear seat)

topped off the seat refurb and they came out looking well. And comfy too!

At this stage we were able to get something of a feel for what driving a new Beetle out ofthe showroom must have been like back in the day, with bouncy seat springs and heady

smells of vinyl, latex and carpet glue.

One final indulgence was the application of poor-mans whitewall tyres. Dave from

whitewalltyres.co.nz by chance happened to be in the neighbourhood and called around

with his marvelous, travelling whitewalling contraption to do the necessary. An hour later

and Ernie was sporting spats and, with that, the jobs a good un.

Many thanks to everyone who helped out with advice, with parts, with tools and on

occasion with muscle; Ern appreciates your efforts. Anyone selling a Kombi?


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____________________________________________________________________________________

CAPTION COMPETITION

Can anyone suggest what thedriver, passenger or elephant

might be saying in this picture,

sent in by John Noble.


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VW ODDITIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

More weird, wonderful, or downright twisted creations from the wonderful world of

Volkswagen, once again courtesy of Club member and expert internet surfer Elaine Young.

Cool roof-chopped and shortened 21 window

Imagine the work that went into that!!

A pair of wanna-be Rolls Royce bugs some people clearly have nothing better to do


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VINTAGE VW ADVERTISING


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OVWEC Newsletter April 2010

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