It was a cold and snowy March in England. The weekend of the Volksworld show was a matter of days away. Weather forecasters the world over were doing their upmost to dampen, and in fact freeze spirits in the aircooled VW community. This weekend last year was a classified heatwave, what a difference 365 days makes!

In the office at VW Heritage, the “roundabout” display as it had become affectionately known was taking shape nicely, on paper at least.. however we were up against Mother Nature, who had other plans.

Having decided on a theme, which was to collect a group of the more unusual VW based vehicles and celebrate the engineering and ingenuity behind them, we had to get to work finding said machines, which proved a little harder then first thought. Fortunately we tracked some down, through facebook, forums and friends of friends.

United by the use of the VW aircooled engine, incidently over 70years old now, this line up was truely diverse. Such a shame the weather stopped some of our other exibits from coming along too, but for those who made it..from left to right we have..

Snow Trac. Imported into the UK by serial VW collecter Russel Ritchie, he kindly leant us this machine to sit on our display. Sadly, despite its obvious  design for snowy conditions, it had to be towed into place with the work van, as the engine is currently only ornamental!

 

 

Rail Buggy. Brought along by Martin Barker, perhaps better known in the watercooled scene for his involvement with the Edition 38 club, and show. This rail was featured on the cover of PVW magazine, and gets used and abused, as it rightly should!

 

 

Formula Vee. Trailered down by owner John Hughes, it should of been on the grid at the first race of the season, if it wasn’t for a) a busted shoulder and b) the race being snowed off! Fitted with finely tuned 1300cc aircooled engines, and utilising Beetle front and rear suspension, expect to see more from the Formula Vee guys now we are supporting their race series.

 

Siva Edwardian Carriage. This sure turned some heads.. driving it through the back of the show ground on Friday evening, there were a lot of confused and comical stares. It might not be to your taste.. but it uses the bottom half of a Beetle, and so took to the roundabout and held its head high. Thanks to Arnie for bringing it along for us to display for the weekend.

 

 

Jurgens Auto Villa. Belonging to Sam at VWorks (who’s working on Nigel’s Jeans Beetle) and it is a real marmite machine. It offers great practicality, but it takes a certain person to look beyond the snail like styling and consider this as a credible camper.

 

 

We would like to extend our thanks to those who had offered to put their vehicles on display, but were unable to make it.. maybe next year?!

Andy