"The Toaster" ~ Personal History and restoration

[DadaCheese]

[DadaCheese]

Treffen #24
Day 6 (only)
Wednesday, July 27th, 2022

I certainly won't claim that I have done the Treffen; I haven't.

Kathy and I did, however, join up with it on Wednesday for a single day of travel.
We both took the day off of work, and drove across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge to Marin to meet up with the folks on The Treffen.
We brought both "The Toaster" as well as Kathy's '71 Ghia, "Shamrock Shake"

Very impressed with the variety of folks, and VWs, making the entire trip.
We were pleasantly awestruck that there were a couple Ghia drivers who have their VERY large dogs with them (one person had a Doberman, another had a German Shepard) as they drive.

There were some folks that came out as far as Florida to do the Treffen.
There were folks who have done the Treffen many, many times.
A convertible Ghia driver was doing the whole trip, but different family members would meet up with her along the way and switch being passengers.
The stories are many, varied and illustrate the sheer joy of this event.

Once we got to the parking lots near the Bay Discovery Museum on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, there were about 65 VWs there (altogether).
It was a mixture of people there just for that meeting, or like us just driving along for the day, and naturally all the long-haulers completing the whole Treffen.
We got to see a few friends we hadn't seen in months, and had enough time to talk at length with other drivers as well.

From there, The Treffen continued on to Half Moon Bay.

The caravan stopped at the Half Moon Bay Brewery and had a seafood lunch. Didn't take any pictures (of lunch), but here's one from the parking lot:

By this time the weather was not as foggy and I even managed to get a little sunburnt while eating outdoors.
The next, and final, stop for the day was in downtown Pacific Grove where the drive culminates at the:
"5th Annual Pacific Grove Hyw 1 Treffen Vintage VW Show and Shine"

Dozens of additional VWs were there for this event with blocked off streets and a relaxed pubic show atmosphere.
Nice feeling having a meet mid-week in the early evening; really felt like summertime.

This is also where Kathy and "Shamrock Shake" ran into a couple minor troubles which were, well, ultimately entertaining.

So used to our 'modern' car in which you can keep your key in your pocket, Kathy accidentally locked her keys in the Ghia.
No problem there; I always have wire hangers in the bus, so we cracked a lot of jokes with other VW folks and passerbys as we "broke into" the Ghia.
I will also bring the spare Ghia key next time too.
Kathy's smart and always has a spare for the bus (which is harder to lock yourself out of).

It is good that we got the attention; someone noticed that Kathy's front-left tire had split.
Amazingly (and thankfully) it had held (air), but it was time to change over to the spare.
I was on track to do this, but the helpfulness of the VW community was strong: someone ran and grabbed a floor jack, our friend Jim K. lent his breaker bar [I had one at the ready, but Jim pointed out about his; "look at the size of this thing," (insert joke about size mattering here, ha ha)].
I had borrowed a compressor to pump up the spare, and Tom (pictured) was the one who did the actual switch-out.

It's always great to know that VW folks are not only more than happy to help, they also WANT to.
Thanks to everyone for making it so easy, fun and community building all at once.

We had dinner there in Pacific Grove, bid farewell to all the Treffen folks, wished them well and drove home cautiously stopping a couple times to make sure the spare was holding up.

Speaking of which; I'm ready for a whole new set of tires on the Ghia. I'd love for them to be dependable long-lasting radials, but for them to assimilate a stock look and size.
This is for a '71 Ghia, 15" wheels. If anyone has specific tires (brand + size/model) to recommend, please let us know.

For us, our Wednesday trip was only about 270 miles (map below).
Wish we could have kept going south with everyone.

To see all the photos I took on Wednesday, you can see them here:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php...ts=summary
Hopefully other folks will post some too.

Next up... I think we're going to Nor Cal Vintage VW & Porsche Treffen, 2022
I didn't see it on the Calendar here on TheSamba, so here's the info:
Nor Cal Vintage VW & Porsche Treffen, 2022
Sunday, August 7, 2022 11:00 am – 5:30 pm
4202 Concord Blvd
Concord, CA 94519
"We don’t judge, no trophies, I don’t even tell your where to park!"
$20.00 per car and spectators are free

Looks like there are a LOT of not too far meets going on. Wish I had time for all of them.

Hope to see you all out and about enjoying your summer in your buses!
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[Abscate]

Split Toast with butter and cheese ……
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.ssS!

[EverettB]

Scary on that tire, glad it got caught before it exploded.
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[Abscate]

Still lots of tread left on that, is it available?
_________________
.ssS!

[DadaCheese]

Sorry; not bus related for half a minute:

[DadaCheese]

Nor Cal Vintage VW Porsche Treffpunkt 2022

Dave Brubeck Park
8am-2:30pm, Sunday, August 7th, 2022
4202 Concord Blvd
Concord, CA 94521

Wonderful warm summer weather at the nicely shaded Dave Brubeck Park.
Great event where Porsche and VW folks get to trade stories.

I feel certain that in uploading photos I got some of the Porsche categorizations wrong, but there were a lot of beautiful Porsches in attendance...

I'm under the impression that the VWs outnumbered the Porsches, however.

Excellent variety of split-window buses were also in attendance, here's a few:

We spent a lot of the meet with our friends of the Norcal Aircooled Group (NAGVW). For the most part, we had circled up together.

All the photos I have uploaded of the Meet can be found here (hopefully other people will upload too?):
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php?...ts=summary

As the meet was finishing up, we were honored to go to an "after party" of some of our friends in the NAGVW who have their own shop/wrenching space.
David was making tacos for everyone, and it was a relaxing way to finish off the day.

Eventually we had to head back home.
Thank you to everyone who came out to the meet that we got to meet, as well as to our wonderful hosts of the after party.

What's next?
A good friend of mine and Kathy's wanted us to give her a tour of Kathy's hometown, Chico (CA), and specifically asked if we could go up there in "The Toaster".
Not the kind of question you have to ask twice, so I think that's the next thing we have that is anything along the lines of a trip, although it's only about 150 miles from here.

Hope all of you are out enjoying the summer in your buses as well!
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[DadaCheese]

Nothing too special... just haven't had the chance to post much in quite awhile.

Kathy and I are on a much needed vacation visiting friends in Germany.

Here's a photo from a great used/new model train store in Berlin near KaDeWe.

I bought the pearl-white bus in this picture.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving; for us it is a FANTASTIC time to visit Germany; far fewer tourists and if you plan ahead, cheap to fly here.
You need only put up with 0-degree (C) weather and some snow.
Our rental car is a Renaut Clio.
We'll drive over 1,000 miles this trip to see most all of our friends.

_________________
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[mdege]

Well, if you happen to pass by our way, your more than welcome to visit.

We are close to Mönchengladbach.

Have a nice trip!
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- Michael

1965 21F: Restoration of a former '65 firetruck
1963 Typ3 Notchback project
1988 Multivan Magnum 112i
1984 Standard: My son wanted a bug for his first car

[DadaCheese]

Michael,

Very kind of you! Hmm; the closest we'll be to you would be briefly on Tuesday the 29th, in Koeln. Unfortunately that's the one time we will have taken the train...

Next time? Or come see us in California, you are always welcome!

-Bryce
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[Murt]

Berlin is a great city to visit in November, and the KaDeWe store is massive.

The food was great, and the Christmas markets too. The Germans love their meat and Sausages 🤩

Me and the wife went over in November 2019 for a few days, and whilst we were there we couldn't resist a full day tour of the city in this lovely bus

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1966 VW Beetle ‘Jules’
1967 Kombi Splitscreen ‘Barney’
2018 VW Caddy Maxi R Line
2017 Golf GTD saloon
2008 VW EOS 2.0 TFSi

[DadaCheese]

Murt, those are fantastic photos! ...and had you rented the split while you visited Berlin, or were you toured about in it?

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Saw this great remote control T1 bus (1:87 scale!!!) at the KaDeWe department store in Berlin, Germany.
Was tempted to buy it, but at 100 Euros, there's a few other scale model, non-remote, buses I think I'd rather buy while visiting here.
Does look incredible though.

Besides snapping photos of distinctive newer VW buses on the street (such as below) we haven't yet noticed any air-cooled VWs out and about, as it is winter, and some streets are being salted.
We have seen a few vanagons, as well as a few 1980's VWs, however.

I'm likely to post a lot more photos after we return to the U.S.

We're briefly in Uelzen, Germany now, visiting with our German professor, and Thanksgiving day will find us all the way back in Hessen after a 5-hour drive.
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[Murt]

Hi DadaCheese
Thank you,
Yes we were toured around the city in that lovely bus, Champagne on board as well saw all the sights from the Reichs building to 'Checkpoint Charlie' and visited the Zoo. Thoroughly enjoyed our time there
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1966 VW Beetle ‘Jules’
1967 Kombi Splitscreen ‘Barney’
2018 VW Caddy Maxi R Line
2017 Golf GTD saloon
2008 VW EOS 2.0 TFSi

[mdege]

[DadaCheese]

[DadaCheese]

Picked this up at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof yesterday; November 29th, 2022.

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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[DadaCheese]

Travel in Germany during early Winter
(not with "The Toaster", regretfully, but hopefully interesting anyway...)

After 4 long years of not being able to visit friends in Germany, we finally made it back.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS PARTICULAR POST:
Too many pictures and a lot of nonsensical rambling which hopefully leans towards VWs.
Likely stuff you already know (about traveling in Germany) too!

This was not only a much-needed vacation, but also the longest that we've taken in a long time (Departed Nov. 16th, returned Dec. 4th, 2022).

Thanksgiving time, if you buy tickets months in advance, can often be a cheap time to fly from the states to Germany.
It's cold enough that many tourists aren't there, and early enough that the Christmas Market tourists haven't yet arrived to the country.

In our typical crazy ways, we wanted to see as many of our friends as we could.
This, however, meant that we ended up driving a total of 1848.57 miles (2975 km).

I wish it could have been in an air-cooled VW, but that would have certainly take more time. Here's the rough route we took this time:

Major stops/destinations:

Nov. 17th) Munich (starting and ending point. Landed mid-day)
Nov. 18th) Schloss Neuschwanstein (then back to Munich)
Nov. 19th) Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Nov. 19th) Bamburg
Nov. 20th) Leipzig
Nov. 21st) Berlin
Nov. 22nd) Uelzen
Nov. 24th) Thanksgiving in Hünstetten, then over to Bad Nauheim
Nov. 28th) TRAIN trip to Bonn, Pulheim and Köln
Nov. 29th) Back to Bad Nauheim by train
Nov. 30th) Quick visit to Bad Homburg
Dec. 1st) Meisenheim
Dec. 2nd) Day trip to Trier, then back to Meisenheim
Dec. 3rd) Lunch in Stuttgart, then back to Munich
Dec. 4th) Munich and our flight home.

ALTHOUGH not gas mileage for a split-window bus, but instead a brand new Renault Clio rental car; here's how it did. I'm a numbers guy, so maybe someone will also enjoy these statistics:

As Kathy and I shared driving duties around the country, I spent a lot of that time fantasizing being on small German highways with The Toaster.
If that was a reality, however, we'd need MUCH more time.

The fastest speed I risked to get up to on the Autobahn was 170 kmph (roughly 105 miles per hour), but there are only isolated stretches that allow for that kind of speed.

...but let's get to some VWs, shall we?

With the possible exception of a couple early Vanagons, and a Bay-window panel bus, we didn't see any air-cooled VWs on the road this trip.
It's the start of winter, it snowed a few times and there was a fair amount of rain too. Most days hovered around freezing, but got up to 7 degrees C. (44.6 F.) during the day occasionally.
The roads start receiving salt treatments in some places, and I imagine some VW hobbyists may just not want to risk their cars around now.

That's not to say there weren't Volkswagens about; I'd say every 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 seems to be a VW in Germany.
Compared to the U.S. there's far fewer cars from Asia/Japan, but naturally far more European cars on the road instead.

Our main focus (although this post will make it seem otherwise) is typically visiting our friends.
We do, however, always try to sneak some new-to-us things in too, which is why we flew into Munich for a change.
Got to explore that town, as well as drive to Crazy Ludwig's castle (Neuschwanstein).

The beautiful town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber is where it first snowed for us, making for a romanticized step into the past. Here's a few pics (VW related) from there:

I had heard of the Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas stores before, but I had never been to one; this was our first time.
They don't allow you to take pictures inside, but at one of their flagship stores in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany, is like walking through a Disneyland ride of Christmas decorations.
Serious sensory overload.
I did manage to snap a couple pics of these buses, though.

I may not go into all the details of our vacation (and trust me, there's plenty of non-VW pictures I've got too; drop over to our house if you want to see those), but I'll throw a comment or two in.

We got to overnight in Bamberg and enjoy dinner at Schlenkerla, which is the traditional brewery of Bamberg Rauchbier (smoked beer). It was excellent, but if we had more time, I'd have liked to take a beer tour; the central part of town has over 6+ breweries.

Stayed at the Hotel Messerschmitt in Bamberg which had these nice models in the entryway (also got to see a variety of Messerschmitt planes from different decades at a museum in Munich):

From there we went to Leipzig for the first time.
Amazing. Historic. Particularly if you're music nuts like we are.
The Mendelssohn-Haus museum is well worth a visit, and the St. Thomas Church where Bach had worked for years was also wonderful (Bach is buried there, although he was MOVED to the church sometime in the 1950's). The church it is very close to Auerbachs Keller where Goethe drank during his college days, and wrote the location into "Faust".
There's also quite a current-day art scene in Leipzig that I wish we had time to explore.
I've heard Leipzig (currently) described as the "affordable Berlin".

Off again the next day to Berlin so that we could have dinner at our friend's house. We did, as mentioned earlier in this thread, stop at the huge KaDeWe department store for a bier and wurst and check out the toy department:

A few blocks from there I had noticed a model train store that I ran over to.
https://www.michas-bahnhof.de/

The owner was very nice and let me know that if I am ever looking for anything in particular, I should call. We spoke in German, but he's (naturally) fluent in English and has a daughter living in London.

After Berlin, back to our college German Professor in Uelzen. Wonderful to spend a couple nights there and visit and talk late into the night about her having settled back into her hometown after retiring, art, literature etc.

Our longest drive was getting back to Hessen so that we could celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and their kids in Hünstetten.
She's German, he's American, and they moved from the Bay to Germany about four years ago. Great to get each of their impressions now that they have both lived abroad.

Our friends in Bad Nauheim are really the ones that feel like family to us, and we love that town:

Not only were we consuming huge quantities of cheese (Nicole of Jochen and Nicole is Swiss), but we also attended Jochen's sister and husband's 50th birthday party.
That involved dancing all night in their house's basement room which is a train-themed bar, just as they all had done often 20 years prior.
We caught up with many of their friends we've known for years, and all the teen-aged cousins bartended the entire night.

Bad Nauheim has a pretty great toy store:

We also took a trip to Bonn, Pulheim and Köln to visit a friend that we haven't physically seen since 1991. He and his family welcomed us in and we had a great time.
I also have some fascinating photos of decommissioned power-plant that our friend managed to arrange a private tour of for us. Drop over; you can see the pictures, but I'm trying to keep this VW related...

Not pictured, but we had a pleasant surprise that other friends (German couple and their two kids) left San Diego during Covid and returned to Germany. Wonderful visit to Bad Homburg to see them as well.

In Bad Nauheim, Nicole (of Jochen & Nicole) who is Swiss, made sure there was plenty of cheese. While visiting we had Raclette one night, Älplermagronen another, and Fondue on yet another night:

Jochen and I also got to enjoy his train set that he recently had retrofitted his old engines to a newer digital format. He's considering building a layout in the play room.
As you can see, this is my friend who collects American licence plates as a hobby and is very well versed. If you've ever seen Kathy and I selling German plates at a meet, it's for him.
He told us to keep the money gathered from the German plates in an envelope so that his family can take us out to dinner the next time they visit. If you ever need a specific plate (American, German...), let me know. Jochen is an expert and has a lot of contacts.

Meisenheim was next where two very dear friends live...

...and we traveled to Trier with Thomas (Julia regretfully had to work) to see the amazing remains of the Roman parts of the town including the Black Gate and their colosseum.

Naturally we also found another great toy store there too.
Spielzeugparadies Klein

Our trip was regretfully coming towards an end, so we drove back to Munich via Stuttgart.

Found this ambulance in good shape at the Christmas Market. He wanted € 150 for it, however (good price? bad?); but our suitcase was already pretty full (not to mention that for me that's pretty steep for a toy that'd remain on a shelf).

After some late-night German stand-up comedy in Munich, our final half day was spent at the Verkehrszentrum Transport Museum of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Incredible.

A few of the VWs:

Three huge halls are filled with every type of transportation you can imagine... oh, there was also this fun collection of Bug toys in a case:

Well worth going to if you are in Munich.

I've uploaded a lot more snap-shot photos (more toys and such); you'll have to look at my photos here on the Samba to see more.

Here's a picture, I believe, of all the VW related items we brought home with us.
Jochen even gave me some of his well-loved die cast cars from the 1980's.

Although we weren't specifically pursuing German Christmas Markets, we did catch several while there as they were just starting up in a lot of places.

Our last hurrah was at the Munich airport which ALSO has a Christmas Market.

The end of a vacation is always the Wurst!

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Lastly... back to actual VWs and "The Toaster".
There's a Christmas Cruise & Gift Exchange this Saturday (December 10th, 2022) at 5pm.
"Meet at The Home Depot at 635 West Capitol Expressway, in San Jose"
It's a combination of clubs and affiliations and individuals attending (at own risk, etc., etc.)
A cruise/drive to see holiday lights ending at a Round Table Pizza for dinner and an optional gift exchange of wrapped gifts of ~$25 value.
More details can be found on Facebook.
Kathy and I intend to attend in The Toaster. It may rain, but we are going rain or shine (although I DON'T know if rain would 'cancel' it or not).

Hope to see you there!
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Dada as in dadaism.
Cheese as in the stuff I love to eat.

[EverettB]

Crazy how many more VW toys in the toy stores there but it shouldn't be a surprise.

I have no idea on the Ambulance but the box is cool.

I like that Bosch sign, very cool.
_________________
How to Post Photos
Everett Barnes - [email protected] | My wanted ads
"Water is the only drink for a wise man" | "Communication prevents complaints"
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[BulliBill]

When are you two going to start organizing "off-season" VW-focused tours of Germany so the rest of us can join you? I wanna party (and eat) with you guys! Nice itinerary and great photos, looks like a lot of fun! Kinda surprised that you didn't hit the Wolfsburg factory and Autostat, or the incredible town of Hessisch-Oldendorf to visit the huge Volkswagen collection of the Grundmann's. Thanks for the European update!

Bill Bowman
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I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[Who.Me?]