Tuning Treffen and European VW Trip 2012 (lots of pics)

[Syncrozilla]

I just got back from a 2 week blitz through Europe. The trip was a dedicated "Car trip". Shaun and I started out in England and took a ferry to Holland. The original purpose of this route was to attend a very large 29 year old VW show in Holland called Beutel. Unfortunatly Beutel was canceled this year less than two weeks before the event. Instead we spent a day in Amsterdam and then went to a very small show in Holland then moved on to Belgium. We had a very nice time with Mike Plompen of Busman.be fame. He showed us a couple of really cool syncros then we had a great meal with his family followed by a few beers in the beautiful city of Gent Belguim. After that we drove to Wolfsburg for the obligatory trip to the heart of VW. We speant a day going thru Autostadt and then a trip through the VW museum. After that we left for Hannover for a visit to VW's Heritage workshop and a look at the 100+ busses they have recently collected. Unfortunatly no photography was allowed in VW. That night we got a tour of Christian Grundmann's mindblowing collection of VWs. Christian is a super nice guy and let us camp in his parking lot and drink his beer. After that we drove south to visit the Mercedes Unimog museum and then attend Tuning Treffen at the Hockenheim Ring. This event is kind of the opposite T3 event to Syncrofest. Although there are VW vans of all types in the campground the event started as a tuning event for the street performance vanagon crowd. At the end of the event there are track session on the Hockenheimring and there are some really fast vanagons out there. The fastest ones were a w12 powered van and several porsche vans as well as audi v8s. It was really fun to watch them drive on the track. Most of the picture will be from Tuning Treffen but I may throw in a few others as well.

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[Syncrozilla]

'95 South African "big window" van and dash layout

Sticker on the dash of a brand new T5 California driven to the event by VW's classic parts division

Interior of the California

Serious drool factor here

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[Syncrozilla]

Here's some more

A really sweet Oettinger European Carat (very different than the us carat)

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[GoWestyYoungMan]

Thanks for posting these!
Regarding the red Atlantic labeled van, does it have a custom front top or are available from someplace?
Regarding the grey Otlenger van, those front turnsignals would be to find also.
Both would be nice to have for my project.

[16CVs]

Cool photos from a great show .Its to bad you are not able to bring that tipper home in your luggage for for me .
Love the guy in the skirt though .
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Keep Your van running and upkept tastefully for the love of the hobby.
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[crazyvwvanman]

It was a standard VW part on some vans. More aerodynamic and allowed for a sunroof over the front seats, also a VW part.

Mark

[kamzcab86]

Some nice vans over there!

[Syncrozilla]

Here are a few more. One thing I noticed is how fond the Europeans are of trailers. I'd have to say abot 40% of the vanagons that showed up were pulling tailers. Some car trailers, some large camp trailers and some small cargo trailers. In contrast I think there where 2 trailers towed behind vanagons at syncrofest this year.

The best part of the show was meeting lots of people in person that I had conversed with over the years on vanagon forums.

Super cool military radio van. Te front side windows are factory.

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[Mickyfin]

That looked a great show, with some very tasty T25's.

Question if I may, does anyone know whats going on with the alloys fitted to the T25 below? They look like Carat alloys, with the centers obviously color coded, but whats with the rivets?

[insyncro]

Thank you Seth.
Looks like it was a great trip.
Awesome photos.

[joetiger]

He's got those Ronal R9's just sitting there...I'll bet they were all over the place!

Great pictures, thanks for sharing.
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Joe T.

'86 NAHT Vanagon GL Syncro/ supercharged ABA 2.0 "Pigpen"
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"get metaphysical with it. if it's simply a means to get to and from places, it will let you down. if it becomes your zen, it can't fail you." -dabaron

"Still, it's good to be afield."--VWagabond

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[Syncrozilla]

Yup there were lots of ronals. I scored the set you see in that picture for 160.00 euros for 4 with project Zwo center caps. They should be on way over here shortly. They are not perfect but I could not pass up the deal. Several real nice sets with good rubber for 350 to 450 euros.

Good eye Mickyfin. I thought the work on those 14" alloys was creative. I'm not sure how the chrome bolts around the edge were secured but I'd hope the bolts used were very short. I'd imagine it could weaken the rim a little to drill lots of holes all the way around like that.
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