Miscellaneous Ramblings

My indoctrination to VWs was not unique. In the mid-1980's, my then girlfriend, and now wife, Cathy, was saving for her first car. It was clear from the outset that it had to be a Beetle, as they were so "cute and pudgy." A car-less high school couple, with fist's full - finger's full - of cash from our summer jobs at a gas station and Burger King, we were ready to step up to the plate and lay our money on the barrel head. I was a life-long boater, and being practical-sorts, we decided that it made sense for Cathy to purchase a Beetle, and I would purchase a ten-foot boat. The best of both worlds, so to speak.

After conducting thorough (I use the term loosely) research, and viewing a few examples, we settled on a 1971 Super Beetle, spray painted Tremclad flat black. The economics of ignorance reared its ugly head in no time, as this car required a lot of tender loving care; or rushed, hurried, get-me-there care, depending on the mood of the day. It soon became apparent that I couldn't afford to pay the local shop to maintain the car, so I rolled-up my sleeves, and jumped right in.

Several years' worth of scraped knuckles and swollen hands later, I found myself managing an aircooled VW shop during the summers, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. My primary responsibilities involved selling parts and wrenching on cars. This helped to pay my way through university, assisting my post-secondary and VW educations. My indoctrination was complete.

While I am a fan of many types of VWs, my true passion is for traditional California Look (Cal-Look) Beetles. I became mesmerized by the beautiful, clean, and purposeful Cal-Look lines early on, studying the subtleties of the style for hours on end. In my opinion, few things are more beautiful than a traditional Cal-Look car, with its lowered front end, polished BRMs, a simple and functional interior, and a purposeful engine braced by dual Weber 48 IDAs. No accessories, big stereo system, wings, or graphics. Less is best and light is right.

It all came together for me, however, when I read our managing editor, Keith Seume's 1995 book, California Look VW. I read the book cover-to-cover, countless times, and soon found myself immersed in the Cal-Look subculture. In 1997, I purchased what has become the second love of my life (Cathy may read this column, after all), an original paint 1967 Cal-Look Beetle.

I wanted to share my love of Cal-Look Beetles with more people, and aside from wearing out Keith's book and flipping through old copies of Hot VWs, VW Trends, and VW Greats magazines, there did not seem to be much else out there to satisfy my hunger. Besides, there was a growing resurgence in the Cal-Look scene that needed to be covered. As a result, I approached my life-long friend, Michael Rhodes, in the fall of 1999. Michael is a gifted Web designer, and we discussed my idea about creating a site dedicated to traditional Cal-Look Beetles. A few months later, in December, we launched Cal-Look.com. Our goal was to become "The Global Meeting Place for Everything Cal-Look."

The response to the site has surprised us, growing at a tremendous rate, generating traffic that will soon approach three-quarters of a million page views per month. Contributing to this growth were the additions of Keith Seume's California Look Forum message board in early 2001; Bill Berckman's Air-cooled Links page in 2002; and recently, Laurent Dubios' (El Dub) Nostalgia Site. The biggest challenges have been keeping up with the demanding workload while managing our growth. With myself as editor, and Michael as the designer, it was apparent that new team members were required, so we brought Dave Conklin (associate editor) aboard in 2001, and Morten Aase (Member cars and Links sections) and Laurent (Nostalgia section) in 2003.

After personally bankrolling the site's creation and initial growth, our continued expansion has been funded through loyal support from a strong family of advertisers, along with T-shirt, mousepad and decal sales through our online store. The site consists primarily of the following sections: Events, Gallery, Members' Cars, Video, Tech, the aforementioned Nostalgia Section and Store, Links, and our Top 10/20 ET ladders. The Top 10/20 section is an ET ladder competition for Member cars, with prizes awarded at the end of the year for the quickest top ten turbo/nitrous powered cars, and the quickest top twenty normally aspirated cars. We also have a regular Connecting Rod column, which reports on breaking news within the Cal-Look scene. Lastly, subscribers receive our free bimonthly newsletter, The Cal-Look Times.

Our mission has always been to stay loyal to the Cal-Look faithful. We don't cater to offroad cars, Type IIs or IIIs, or Things. We don't even cater to Tremclad flat black 1971 Super Beetle owners. There is a risk in creating a site that appeals to everyone, you end up appealing to no one.

So there you have it, my VW life so far. From a needy 1971 Super Beetle to my 1967 Cal-Look Beetle; from managing a VW shop to managing Cal-Look.com; and finally, to launching my new column for Ultra VW Magazine.