Sunday June 10th 2001 - The VW Classic it's self

Sunday is the day of the real VW classic event (the rest of the weekend is organised by other people, this is the show that started it all). It can get hot out there in California, so we decided to head out early to see most of the show before it got to hot. So we woke up around 06:00 and started the 10 mile drive to the showground around 06:30. The show is held on the parking lot of an amphitheater. There was a 20 minute queue to get in to the show. Nothing to crazy for anyone whose been to the big european shows, but the americans weren't imprssed. It did turn out to be the biggest Classic sofar.

Parking was verry close to the showground and you could easily walk back and forth to the car as they checked for tickets when you drove on/of the parkinglot. This came in handy as we made some trips back to the car for sunblock and soda's.

Again lot's of vendors selling stuff. NOS panels are hard to find. but the second hand stuff is of good quality out here. I was on the lookout for a vintage cooler/icebox, but with the current exchange rate i could find anything that was cheap enough to drag back home. I did buy some stickers, antenna balls and stuff that make nice souveniers for the VW friends back home.

Neal was trying to sell his literature again. He didn't sell to much, but we gladly took him up on the offer of free soda's and a rest in the shade under his big umbrella. Thanks again dude.

There were about 100 splitscreen busses on display. The baywindow bus is not so popular out here. We only saw a few, nicely restored, bays at the show (you do see plenty of beat up bays going up and down the coast). All other types of VWs were reprisented at the show. Lot's of verry nice cal-look bugs, plenty of nice stock bugs and a fine display of type IIIs (even a type IV) and Karmann Ghia's.

Chris Morely had a few verry cool 70's racecars and support busses on display. He had a period KG, a DDS and an EMPI sponsored beetles. The busses had EMPI and DDS signwriting. Verry cool stuff!

The OCTO bus club has a nice display of all kinds of busses. from campers to firetrucks and a cherrypicker. The Manx club also had a nice display of all kinds of buggies in a lot of different styles.

Around lunch time it got really hot on the tarmac, but most of the vendors had shady stands and big iceboxes full of cold soda's. They would usually include a cold can of soda in a business deal. Because of the heath a lot of people started to leave around 14:00. By that time Dyno Don was still entertaing the crowd at the main stage with his never ending waterfall of words and free stuff that he was throwing into the crowd.

Around 15:00 most vendors started to pack up and we deicied to get something to eat on the way over to Charly Hamills place (he had invited us to his post-classic party). This was something like 20 miles up north at his house/workshop "The Busstop".


























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