BRM Speedwell Wheels from Flat 4
What is the Cal-Look?
The New Beetle doesn't look like any other car, yet people can't resist the temptation to make their car unlike any other. In customizing Quark, I have adopted the retro-look. The retro philosophy is simple: don't put big wings, body kits or big wheels on your New Beetle but instead try to capture the look, feel and style of its original Beetle predecessor. There are several different retro looks that take slightly different twists on the same theme: Resto-Custom, Resto-Cal, Cal Look, Hot Rod and the intrguing Miscellaneous class. Resto-Custom and Resto-Cal are probably the most popular retro styles and involve the use of tons of old school accessories, wood slat roof racks and custom paint jobs. The California Look is the look inspired by the performance drag racing Beetles that started appearing in the mid-1960s thanks to aftermarket engine parts manufactured by companies such as EMPI and Speedwell.
The Beetle shown below is a great example of the Cal Look on a old Beetle.
The key features to note and try to reproduce in a New Beetle are:
1) Speedwell BRM mag wheels
(a must, available for the NB from Flat 4)
2) single colour paint job
(your standard NB paint job will do)
3) all excessive trim removed
(the NB doesn't have much chrome trim to begin with)
4) no exterior accessories or roof racks
(resist the temptation of PIP and Flat 4 for a while or least), however, it should be noted that some of these cars sported roof racks while travelling to and from the track to carry their racing slicks and equipment but removed the racks to make their runs
5) nose-down stance, larger rear tires
(it can be done on a NB but I don't think the look is hurt without it)
6) a big engine
(a 1.8T or supercharged 2.0 will do the trick)
7) running board covers
(every old Beetle had them and you can get them for the NB)
8) stinger exhaust, obscured in photo
(a little ingenuity can capture this look on an NB, if it isn't actually hooked up I won't tell)
9) various retro accessories when the look moves off of the strip and onto the street like fuzzy dice, 8-balls, Unocal 76 logos, EMPI stickers etc.
(let your imagination run wild!)
Since the first thing most people do is buy a wood slat roof rack for their retro NB, the California Look has been kind of overlooked. A roof rack, two-tone paint or stock wheels (like the classic ATPs for New Beetles) would never have been found on a Cal Look Beetle, so any NB having these accessories is automatically disqualified. This is unfortunate as the Cal Look is not that difficult to obtain, especially if your NB is a 1.8 Turbo that already meets the requirements for a high performance engine.
I'll admit that my retro NB is a work in progress and will gradually drift towards the Resto-Cal style if I get two-toned and a roof rack (for carrying around that 1960s surfboard that floats around in my dreams of course!). This is another great advantage of the Cal-Look, it is a perfect launching pad for the Rest-Cal style. You wind up with a custom retro machine relatively quickly and get to enjoy it for a while while saving to do further mods. It also gives you a chance to see if you really like the retro look before doing something irreversible like a two-tone paint job. However, I must say that the Resto-Cal two tone gets more respect from ohter VW owners and is more associated with the retro style because of its abundance of accessories and the fact that the majority of the retro NBs on the road sport this look. However, the Cal Look can be just as much fun and once it becomes established and accepted it is sure to become a respected branch of the custom VW community.
BRM Speedwell Mag Wheels
Replicas of the BRM Speedwell Mag Wheels were an essential part of Cal Look old Beetles and are made for the New Beetle by Flat 4. Although they are made from aluminum, they capture the look of the original BRMs perfectly and are an essential part of a Cal Look New Beetle. The rims have the proper NB bolt pattern and are 17 inches in diameter with a 7-inch width. Since I already had the factory 17-inch alloys on Quark, I simply had her tires swapped over onto the new rims at NTB. The process took about half an hour and all the technicians were raving over the wheels. You'd be surprised how the old beetle crowd recognizes them and they immediately give the car the retro look.
Custom 8-Ball Shifter
An 8-ball shifter isn't exactly something that was common on old beetles but it was almost mandatory on hot rods and kustoms in the 1960's. Since I'll probably never have my own deuce coupe, I thought I'd bring the look to Quark's interior. Since Quark is an automatic with shift lock, the standard 8-ball available at AutoZone would not work so I had to make one of my own. I started with a brushed aluminum Sola Landspeed BeetleBall automatic shift knob painted it black and decaled it to look like an 8-ball. Not only does the 8-ball give the interior a great retro look, it also improves access to the swiveling cupholders since it is much smaller than the stock T-grip shifter.
Handpainted Union 76 Logo Fog Light Covers
Union 76 and their Unocal Racing Gas are synonymous with both the race track and drag strip, especially in Southern California where 76 service stations are very common. It seems that every major track has a giant 76 Ball hanging over it somewhere, including my favourite dirt short track, Sunset Speedway in Omaha, Nebraska. I have also been searching for a 76 antenna ball for years (76 stations are not found in the parts of North America where I've lived and travelled). I wanted to bring a retro look to Quark's front end without getting Euro VW logos (I think the standard logos look awesome on a silver NB) and I glanced down at my clear TVA GE lexan fog lamp covers and saw a nice big bubble shape that would make a perfect 76 Ball. I used some computer tricks to generate a pattern mask and then painted the inside of the fog lamp covers with paint specially formulated for lexan R/C model car bodies. I really like the way they turned out and have received a great positive response from fellow VW owners at shows and club meetings. I've even had a few requests for pairs... hmmm... maybe a new little side industry?
Here's the look during the day...
...and at night. I'm not sure if they are legal but they are fun... the Spirit of 76! I use them sparingly as the paint traps heat inside the cover and I don't want to burn the bulbs out prematurely.
EMPI Stickers
EMPI. How can you have a retro NB, especially a retro turbo, without something from EMPI, the legendary manufacturer of high performance parts for air-cooled VWs? I found these super neat-o stickers on ebay but I'm sure they can be found at shows if you look hard enough. I'm told they are replicas of 60s dash plaques so I mounted mine on the glove box door, right below the "roller coaster" handle. The 120 MPH always gets a laugh or comment from my front-seat passenger! Power Rules!
Retro Plates
To complete the retro look at shows, I swap Quark's standard Texas plates for a pair of more interesting plates that are better suited to the Cal-Look era:
1962 Texas Front Plate
1963 California Rear Plate with 1964 and 1965 validation stickers.
The perfect plate as these were the years that the SoCal surfing and hot rodding scene spread across the nation before the psychedelic and hippie culture bumped it from the national spotlight and Billboard charts in the late 1960s.
