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Our yearly wintermeeting was real nice as usual. We assembled at one of the clubmembers's home and took off from there for a drive around the countryside which ended at a museum and eating a tradional meal together.
It appeared that 4 type 4's fitted easily on their driveway :



Parking lot at the museum and a shot from a sighting half-way.

Hey, thanks for posting these! I can't even imagine seeing such a gathering of Type-4s here in the US. I have three myself and have taken plenty of pictures of them together. But a whole fleet of them out on the road at the same time? Only once in my 24 years of Type-4 ownership have I driven with another Type-4, and that was just an amazing moment only two years ago. I pulled up to a left turn signal, and there, two cars ahead of me was another 412! After the turn I was able to pull in right behind him, and when he saw me in his rear view mirror he did a double-take and then pulled over so we could meet. Anymore nowadays people see me in my 411 or 412 and ask me just what the heck kind of car this was. Lots of appreciation, which is nice to hear. I'm also the only Type-4 at any VW show, and then I get lumped-in with the several Type-3s, and a lot of people don't even know the Type-4 ever existed. Oh well! I've had Type-3s as well, and I like the 4 a lot better.

Great photos! Yes, I too have the only type-4 in my city (at least one that is road-worthy). I have actually people stop to talk to me about my car, and even after I tell them it's a V.W., some have been stunned enough to ask 'So, is this a Saab?,' or other dim-witted suggestions.


Ray: Where are you from?


Wally: I have the same wheels on my car now as the photo below (in fact, my car is a near twin. Take away the trailer hitch, and add bumper guards..... ). However, I have not found a solution to get the centre caps to fit the front wheels. There is hardly any clearance where the rotor enters the rim. Do you think you could ask the owner of this car what their secret is?

Thanks!

Travis

Nice gathering Wally. Thanks for sharing.

Kirk (aka raykinsella) and Travis, we should get together at Kirks on the Kitsap Peninsula and match this showing of Type4's!

Oooo! Oooo! Oooo! Group photo !!!

Ahh...It's not 'Ray,' it's 'Kirk'......as in Kirk Knighton? (Boy, I'm a yutz).

Well, we'd have to see how this year plays out; I may bring my 412 for the Great Canadian VW Show in Coquitlam (Vancouver) B.C., which is typically the third sunday in August. It would be about a 500 mile trip to make it there, and may opt to trailer the car that distance. We'll see!

How's your schedule, guys?

Travis

Thanks Wally for those great pictures! We dont see gatherings of 411/412's up here, we hardly see them at all.
The metallic green Variant was my absolute dream when I was younger, now Im happy that I have two Typ4's at all, the only two in my town.

/Lars

Your welcome guys!
About type 4 gatherings: Because the type 4 exists 40 years this year, the dutch 412club wil try to put together 40 (yes, forty) type 4's this summer in a big meeting. That would be a record!

Hopefully they will have an exact date, location and program soon. They will put it on the home page of the club site and if I know about it, will put the info here in the 411/412 forum.
Of course, we need as many cars as possible from surrounding country's as well to be able to attain that goal of 40 type 4's...

Thanks for the great pictures Wally! It's really good to see such a collection of Type 4s

Travis, I had a set of those wheels on my Variant when I got it (eventually I swapped them with my brother for a set of standard wheels with brand new tyres, I was a penniless student at the time and good tyres were more important than pretty wheels!). We called them 'Marathon' wheels because they were fitted to the Marathon Special Edition Beetle in 1973. My car also came without centre caps, but I found that the plack plastic centre caps that were fitted to '90s Mexican and Brazilian Beetles fitted, the part number is 111 601 171 A. After seeing them on my car, a friend who worked at the local VW garage ordered a set for the same wheels fitted to his cabriolet.

Wally wrote:Your welcome guys!
About type 4 gatherings: Because the type 4 exists 40 years this year, the dutch 412club wil try to put together 40 (yes, forty) type 4's this summer in a big meeting. That would be a record!

Hopefully they will have an exact date, location and program soon. They will put it on the home page of the club site and if I know about it, will put the info here in the 411/412 forum.
Of course, we need as many cars as possible from surrounding country's as well to be able to attain that goal of 40 type 4's...

this sounds like quite a mammoth task!!

are there 40 Type 4s aound in Holland?

I have just shown this one to my wife and she said we need to get our passports renewed in an effort to bring our 412 from just over the water in England.

If nothing else to just see this many Type 4s in one place will be quite someting

Keep us informed Wally...

wshawn wrote: I have just shown this one to my wife and she said we need to get our passports renewed in an effort to bring our 412 from just over the water in England.

If nothing else to just see this many Type 4s in one place will be quite someting

Keep us informed Wally...

That would be extremely cool!

Yes, there are that many and more in Holland, but not all are registered and also comming to meetings one would expect. I think we had close to 30 cars last year on the annual meeting, but 40 would be quite something spectacular indeed.
You have to know that the dutch 412club has very close connections to the german type 4 club ('Typ 4 Verein' in german), so we get quite some german cars visiting each year too, which help the count

I'll post a seperate thread about the international meeting with the 40-year theme

I just can't imagine that many T4's all in one place. In my 4-5 years of T4 ownership I have seen only one or two other ones that weren't in wrecking yards.

Hey Bill and Travis!

Yeah, that sounds great. I think the three of us are within 200 miles of each other. Plus, as in my story above, the guy with the 412 I drove with a couple of years ago actually lives on Bainbridge Island, about 5 miles from me. He has a 1973 blue 4-door. I've never had a 4-door. And there used to be a guy with a '72 411 wagon on the island, but I think he has moved away.
So, if we had my three cars, this other guy near me, and your two cars, that would be SIX type fours all together. That might make the headlines of the Seattle Times ( on a slow day...). Can we think about sometime this Spring?
You know, I don't remember why I'm registered here as RayKinsella. I think I'd just watched the movie Field of Dreams, and Ray, you may recall, was the main guy in the movie.
Speaking of Field of Dreams: I bought my blue fastback 412 in Pennsylvania in 2002 and drove it home across America. One of the places we visited was the actual Field of Dreams in Iowa where they filmed the movie. As we drove up a bunch of other visitors out on the baseball field came walking up to my 412 as if it had magically appeared out of the cornfield. "I haven't seen one of these in years!" they said. And " What the heck is this thing - a BMW? Volvo?" My car became a second attraction there; I wish I had had some t-shirts to sell.

Hello, Kirk,

Well, this Spring won't quite work out for me; as I mentioned above, I'm about 500 miles north of Vancouver, B.C., so add that to the 150+ miles to the Sea-Tac area. I'd love to get together for a group photo and get to know some of the other guys in the PNW (besides Bill .....just kidding ).

I likely won't be able to make such a trip until the car show in August. Not only is the distance a bit of a barrier to make it a casual trip, but I run my own business, and Spring is typically when things are getting fired up.

I don't know if you would be interested in attending with one (or all?) of your cars. Perhaps Bill could bring his yellow 412 this year. Maybe we'll get a bit of a mention/photo in Hot VW's. If you can't make the trip North, then I'll try to make plans to go a little further south. Who else from the PNW can we drum up? On an interesting note, I got to meet Julie Aleva the year that she brought 'Sparkie' up for our annual Canadian car show (which I think was 2003?).

Oh, and by the way Bill, congratulations for getting your green 412 Wagon in the February 2008 Issue of Hot VW's......you know, on page 60, for the article on the Great Canadian VW Show of 2007. That's right, just there in the bottom-right corner. I saw it - you know it!


412s2: Yes, we pretty much refer to them as Baja Marathon wheels here too. I actually have two full sets of them; I had them all sand-blasted and painted the original scheme about a year-and-a-half ago. I have two full sets of centre caps as well, but just haven't really tried to fit the front ones yet. I've thought about milling down the front rotor hubs around the bearing caps for the required clearance....but haven't attempted it yet. I'm still open to other suggestions, though!

There are pics of my car in a previous thread, and you can see that it's missing front caps: http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=113985
Oh well, that'll be a task for when winter is over. It's definitely not VW weather right now; we're expecting -30C/-22F by mid-week.


Travis

Hi guys,

The data of the 40-years-type4-meeting will be from wednesday 30 april till sunday 4 may and it will be on the camping "De Heische Tip" in the city Zeeland.
(you shoud know that Wally, it was in the club magazine )

I would say, come all and the organisation will be suprised

Gr. Ronald

added later: Oops after this post I saw the other post from Wally with data, adress, etc.

Hey Travis,

Well as time goes by we'll see what unfolds. If I were to drive up there I'd only be able to bring one of my type-fours, unless it's summer and my son was home from college and he could drive as well. But if it's just me then I'd definitely drive Sparkie so you could see her again. But summer down here is good; there's the big show in the middle of July. If we all showed up together they'd have to give us our own Type-four category instead of having to share the spotlight with the type-threes again.

Regards, Kirk