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May Weekend Fun at Volksfling - 30 May 2016
Festival atmosphere at a sunny Biggar Volksfling
 Volksfling
came to Biggar for the bank holiday weekend, attracting a wide
selection of everything, and anything Volkswagen, or Audi, classic,
modern, and heavily customised as well.
My friend Graham is an
avid VW fan, having owned a number of their classics. Currently he is
the proud owner of a 1980 T25 camper and a 1972 VW Beetle 1600GT. Now GT and Beetle seem
hard to say in the same breath, but his can squirt along the road at
top side of 70mph with no problem at all. His Beetle is one of only
2500 made and only 1250 were in his yellow colour. Graham's son Sam
joined us, and when old enough to drive wants a Beetle too. Keep it in
the family it appears.
It was a sunny morning for the 20 mile
drive to Biggar which hosts a number of classic car shows during the
year. The wide selection of Beetles and beach buggy variants, were
supported by a plethora of camper vans, mostly the sought after T2
which are now commanding silly prices, especially the split screen
variety which are now going for topside of £64000. The later bay
window windscreen style are more affordable but catching up fast.
We met CCHMSC member John Stuart who was along for the weekend
in his T25 camper circa 1980 vintage. Our first stop on the walkabout
was beside three early vintage pristine Beetles.
My
question to these VW aficionado's was to identify them in chronological
order. This was easier said than done as to me they all looked the
same! The answer is found by looking at the back of the cars. No
badges, so no clues there. Try the rear windows. The oldest had a split
rear screen, the next a small one piece oval screen, and the newest a
larger more rectangular screen. 1951, 55, and 59 was the correct
answer. The '51 boasted an 1132cc engine putting out a whopping 25bhp,
while the '55 managed 1192cc and 34bhp. VW must have been worried too
much power and the '59 while still 1192cc could only manage 30bhp. No
Herbie wheelies here then!
 Bumped into another friend, literally, not actually,
who had brought along his bay window T2 campervan. Spotted on
eBay he rescued it from a front garden somewhere in the south of
England, then restored it from the ground up. Now travels all over the
place, including the North Coast 500 round the top of Scotland. Has the
advantage of not needing to find expensive B&B's on route, which
are like hen's teeth anyway up there.
 Of course there were
plenty of beach buggies and an interesting WW2 Kubelwagen conversion,
from the seventies, the VW 181/182 Trekker. My personal favourite
was the 1973 Type 3 Squareback estate complete with surfboard on the
roof, ready to go. Take me to the beach.
Some
like to make their beetle go even faster, and a nice UVA Fugitive
converted from twin Webers to fuel injection was a good example. I
won't tell you how quickly the driver made it up
from Durham!!
 Time for a break
and armed with burgers and hotdogs we headed over to John Stuart's T25
camper to enjoy a cool beer, except for Sam who was limited to Coca
Cola. A walk around the autojumble stalls picked up a few Beetle bits
and pieces for Graham. I snapped up a few magnetic trays, ideal for
those bolts you take out under the bonnet and can never find again. I'm
told the trays work upside down as well, so no more hunting for the
bolts when lying under the car feeling around and ending up banging my
head on the exhaust pipe!
But the day was coming to a close and
time to exit before the mad rush which can take hours on the single
track exit route from the site. A great day, even if your not a VW fan,
just to see how passionate these guys are about the marque.
| Updated 2 June 2016
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