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What kind of outfits would you expect Brazilian booth professionals to wear when showing off VW Beetles and Variants at the '79 Salão do Automóvel in São Paulo? How about long flowery dresses, the better to show off the features of the new alcohol-fueled VWs? BЯдΖǐL-ЯЄРΘЯΤЄЯ has unearthed these great photos for us; make the jump to see them all and read his description. galleryPost('BrazilBoothBabes79', 6, 'VW Booth Pros Of 1979'); Our time-machine has the dial on 1979, and the location is São Paulo, to be more specific the VW booth at the "Salão do Automóvel" See how forward thinking we were, a car on ethanol, does that not sound familiar today? On the other hand the forward thinking stood still with the booth babes they looked more "nun" than "babe", also the air-cooled boxer was a best-seller.
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, the "get out of jail free" supercharged Beretta edged out the "must stand 100 feet back to take the photo" Mazda Millenia in the Choose Your Eternity poll , in a 54:46 split vote. For today, we're going with a couple of cars suggested by 24 Hours Of LeMons -loving readers who were inspired by the Corvair and Peugeot 505 Turbo racers to look for even better LeMons entries… When you think about a Chrysler-engined British car, the Jensen Interceptor is probably the first thing that comes to mind. While the Interceptor makes a fine Project Car Hell candidate , its perceived value to Jensen masochists aficionados is such that you'll never find one for anywhere close to the 500-buck 24 Hours Of LeMons limit. Hold on, though- what about the Bristol 408 ? Powered by the good ol' reliable Chrysler 313 , the Bristol combined...
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. One thing I've tried to do is keep Volkswagen Old Beetles from overwhelming the series; that's because there we've got more air-cooled Beetles than any other type of old car on the island- more, even, than Chrysler A bodies. This doesn't mean, however, that I should avoid them completely- I just need to space them carefully… and our last one was all the way back in June. So here we go- our first DOTS Super Beetle! I'd had a couple of old-style Beetles prior to getting my first Super Beetles, and the switch from the old torsion-beam front suspension to McPherson strut suspension (this being the primary difference between the Super Beetle and the regular kind) didn't feel all that meaningful while driving. However, the new front suspension made room for lots more storage space under the hood. I'm not 100% sure of the year...
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Sometimes months can go by between my photographing of a DOTS car and posting those photographs. Today's car is a good example; I shot the original photos last August, but the island is overflowing with air-cooled Beetles and I have a glut of photos of such cars (yes, Beetle fans, I know I should be posting more of them... and I will, promise). But this particular exposed-engine Beetle, which I'm arbitrarily calling a '69 (though it could be from any year during the 68-72 span), got in some sort of messy collision in the meantime and then moved across town. At first, I thought I was looking at a different car, but checking plate numbers told the whole story. So what we have here is your standard mildly hot-rodded late-60s/early-70s Beetle, with exposed engine but retaining the factory wheels and hubcaps. This could easily be the original engine, or the 15th, and the displacement could be anything from 1200cc all the way up to a stroked "How much money you got?" mill...
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Anyone want to take a guess on the year of this thing? The taillights, 4-lug front wheels (rears are using adapters) and what appears to be a swingaxle rear suspension would seem to indicate 1968... but we all know how parts tend to get swapped around on Type 1s, particularly when it's a Baja. Anyway, it's been a while since we've seen an air-cooled VW (unless you count this 914 as a VW), so today will be Beetle Friday. Alameda was a serious Baja Bug city back in the 70s and 80s; several of my high-school classmates drove them, and I had a Type 3-powered '58 that had been horribly butchered into a cruel parody of a Baja by a previous owner. But now it seems that we're down to just a single example on the whole island (unless there are a few hidden away in garages). Ah, the old crankshaft degree wheel! And that's the de rigueur Bosch 009 distributor- you can just barely make out the number in the photo. These things actually do amazingly well off-road... but so do...
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newVideoPlayer("72_VW_Floating_476.flv", 463, 387,""); Yes, we know the joke: if Ted Kennedy had had a Beetle instead of an Olds 88 , Mary Jo Kopechne would be alive today and he'd have been elected president in 1972. Actually, the Beetle would have sunk just as fast as the Olds, because all the rust holes in the floorpan caused by New England weather would have let the water in plenty fast (13 pounds of paint or no). Now, if Ted's Chappaquiddick drive had involved an Amphicar ...
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We've seen four of Alameda's air-cooled Beetles so far in this series (a '59 , a '64 , a '66 , and a '69 ). With the 50s and 60s covered, I figured I should shoot a 70s model. With so many old Beetles still roaming the island, that's no problem at all- the only choice was between a standard Beetle and its Super Beetle sibling; I opted for the former. The old air-cooled Type 1 engine was nearing the end of its long run in North America by the time this car was built; the smog belching from the clattery opposed-four wasn't going to be easy to reduce. The '72 Beetles got a 60-horse 1600 engine, which did a fairly decent job of moving the car's light weight. This example is a bit battered, but mostly solid and rust-free, which isn't always the case in California; Beetles like to rust so much that they can even find a way to do so in this dry, road-salt-free climate. The main difference between the regular Beetle and its Super sibling was the front...
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