6 posts tagged “usa”

Wow its been so long since I posted. But we do get side tracked.
On the first of July last year again while I was in the US, I was heading up to the Bugorama in Sacramento. I had heard of a rather famous Hot Rod happening in the town of Paso Robles, out in the Napa region of Cali. It was kinda on my way to Sacto, (as I was driving up from LA) so I stopped in for a sticky.
Damn what a sight. As you can see from the images the rat look is king. Well it is in my book.

On the 3rd of June last year while I was in the US, I decided the Pomona Swap Meet was the place to be.
The swap takes place at the LA County fairgrounds in the foothills up in Pomona about  8 times a year. Even though the air is still pretty crappy, its not a bad part of Los Angeles.
So its another early rise. Gates open at 5am and its all about over by noon so you gotta get outa the fart sac before 4am if you want any hope of getting there and getting a bargain. It gets warm out there too, so you dont really want to be there in the arvo anyway.
As I was staying in Hollywood which is right across the other side of Los Angeles about 35miles from Pomona. I think it took about an hour to get there or a bit more after a quick bite at the local Macca's for brecky.
Its such a great event Pomona swap, I dig it. Again I was after splitty bits  mainly, there was a fair bit of stuff on offer, but I didn't  find too many bargains. A few of the retailers turn up as well as the little guys sellin their excess bits-n-pieces.
There is a show section and a cars for sale section. Its not only VW's though, theyve got areas set out for Porsches and hot rods and street machines, tools and toys. I think even in another area they have a regular type  swap meet for clothes and house wares, don't quote me though, cos ive never got down that far and anyway, Im not that into white goods at the moment.

On the Wednesday night before the VW Classic many street and drag VW's make their way up to Irwindale Dragstrip for what I would guess is a similar thing that they run here at the Kwinana Motorplex  on Wednesday nights, a "run what ya brung"  type event. Its not only VW's competing though, there was plenty of  V8 muscle that turned up which were pretty awesome hard core old school street cars. Stuff we surely dont see down at our local strip much.
Very cool !
Check out the video I took with my little digi.
The sounds a bit distorted but you'll get the idea.
Some fast cars and trucks and some cool VW smoky burnouts.

Now that the silly season is finally behind us.
The next post will be back to the Outlaw.

Heres a couple mpegs I took at the classic this year.
Just getting used to usin this new camera by now.
That Barndoor of Jays from Rustbox is a killer.
One of those Columbian buses that have surfaced recently. You can see its pretty gnarly and way different sheet metal than on other barndoors ive seen. I dig that bus!

  This was my second visit to the Classic at Irvine, amongst the rolling hills and orange groves of Southern California. But today as I cut my way across the OC in the early hours of this Sunday morning, through the   mist that covers most of the West Coast in the am, I could not see any orange groves, my mind was not on any boring old citrus. I was heading towards, what many VW fiends believe, is the epitome of static VW shows on the planet.  In the eighties where once oranges grew in abundance, now out of the desert grows concrete freeways, business parks and strip homes. I guess even So Cal has to house folk somewhere and there really is nowhere else for them to go, This is the west coast, they aint heading any further west.  With all this development, Orange County however is still miles nicer than the area surrounding my digs up on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.     Arr Sunday morning, the freeways that cross LA County, actually work. But this is 7am, in another 2 hours, state freeway number 405 which motors through Los Angeles County’s south land and joins Interstate 5 into Orange County will become, yet again, a carpark!  As I am joined by more sleepy eyed drivers on the Interstate, I start to see the odd aircooled VW, south bound, along with me. At one point I am doing 65mph and 3 splittys zoom up and pass me on the right. Damn they drive fast here in Los Angeles! 

   Before I know it, the signs are saying “Irvine next exit” and then the “Amphitheatre”, where we will all line up patiently, on the slip road, that is the one and only entry and exit point to this large facility, and then, the show will begin. As usual with the Americans though everything is organised and we all get through the gates quickly and park up.  The first thing on my program is of coarse, the swap meet and I am in luck. I’ve parked directly in front of it, good for many quick trips back to the trusty Toyota to unload the booty. I am here for splitty bits and as was the case in Sacramento a couple weeks previous, there is slim pickings. I find the Californians pretty helpful though and I manage to source some much needed parts for my current project and at pretty reasonable prices.     Many would know that the US market was and to a large extent still is, a major market for German auto manufacturers and the cars that do go there and the VWs that arrived there in the 60s were all high spec examples, where mostly the VW’s that came to Australia were bare bones low specification, I imagine to try and save on import tarrifs applied buy the Ozzie government to try and make the local   Holden’s and Falcons competitive. But that didn’t happen, even a paired down Beetle or Kombi was and some will say still is, a nicer form of transport.  So it goes, that all the little extras we didn’t get here on our buses and beetles are not so scarce over in the US. Unfortunately however, the mass of swap meet bargains are just not there anymore, as they were in the eighties or as I remember they were. Where once every vender had an assortment of deluxe clocks and pre 63 beetle pop outs, today you gotta focus and ask and search and then if you find it, you better watch out. The North Americans have the Internet now and they know how to use it, to check market status. Used bus parts were particularly scarce and for me, this was a bit of a bummer.  But hey, all the big name retail suppliers were set up next to the swap area with their latest products on show. So I decided to spend my povo Australian dollars up there. It’s amazing to visit the retailers and check what’s new. It seems every week they are bringing out new parts, mostly with better prices and better quality. It’s quite unreal, when you compare prices of things in the 70’s and 80s to today, many things have not increased in price and usually quality has gone up. Of course allot of the bits are made in Taiwan and China, but much is made in the US and as usual the quality is first class. In such a cut throat market that So Cal is, a shoddy dealer selling second rate parts just wont survive. Its such a tough market even the good dealers sometimes fail.     So then it was onto the show area and the line-ups of every air-cooled VW known.  Cal Look is still big news in its homeland and the Rat Look and Hoodride styles were pretty well presented. I don’t think I saw any full on German look cars, a style, which I hear, is making its way into the US. I was fortunate not to see any fibreglass body kits on sedans and thankfully no pastel paint.      So all in, it was a great event, and so like they say, if you ever get the chance, buy yerself a ticket and get over and check it out!