Resto Cal Heaven - '60 Beetle

Being British, it's not hard to dream of living somewhere warm and sunny like California - a place where car culture is king and you can roll a Resto Cal Bug on a daily basis. But it's only a dream... I certainly couldn't do my daily commute in a car like this stunning '60 Ragtop. One winter and it would look a shadow of the car you see here. Ever noticed the way top quality VW products from the States lose their lustre in our climate? Take a Gene Berg traction bar or linkage, for example, or an A-1 muffler; fit one to a VW in California and it'll look the same in five years. Here? It'll look crap within one. So, all we can do is dream, and try our best to stop the rot. Justin Ancell, on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about our corrosive climate as he lives in Whittier, California and that's why the detailed Fuchs alloys, ‘Earlies' of course, look so sharp. You see, he lives in California - the heartland of resto Cal and the home of The Original German Folks Klub. Anyone who has been reading this magazine a while will have heard or the G.F.K, as we go back, way back! VolksWorld was the first magazine to give the ‘Klub any serious ink - even before the local American VW magazines. We saw the GFK style was about to become a worldwide phenomena. During the last 15 years we have featured untold G.F.K cars, with a great help from John Canales, and we've seen ‘The Family' spread its wings outside of California, with G.F.K Chapters now set up in Arizona, Japan and this country. One thing the Chapters have in common is that the cars are instantly recognisable for their German Folks style. The formula hasn't changed that much over the years, but it has become more focused and the quality of execution has been raised. The elements are typical Resto Cal - a restored car with slammed suspension. But today you're nothing without a narrowed front end, 4.5 and Early six-inch Fuchs and a stack of rare original aftermarket VW accessories.
You don't have to run a stock 1192cc motor, you can fit a hot dual carb motor, or even a turbocharged engine. Justin Ancell's 1960 Ragtop is a typical G.F.K car, built to the ‘standard' and hitting a big fat 10 on the rare accessory scale. As with any full-blown G.F.K car, the seal of approval only comes when you get your ‘window'. In layman's terms, this means you are given permission to have the rear window of the car signwritten with ‘The original German Folks'. Getting ‘your window' means you are part of the family and part of the original and leading Resto Cal club in the world.

For the full story on this car make sure you pick up a copy of the November 2009 issue of VolksWorld

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