Yesterday (saturday) we made a verde a trip to see a very special car and we stopped by Katrake, a VW shop specialised in suspensions. We had a very fun day and learned to know a couple of new VW friends with their hearts in the right (VW) place!

My friend Luiz from  the Brazilian VW Magazine VW Klassik drove us today to see a very special car…

I heard from this car before, it looked like a race car  build on a platform from a 1946 Beetle.

Its made in Germany, around 1949 and it was part of a traveling circus…

Most parts are authentic 1946,a s are the numbers… it’s really beautiful made, with a big eye to detail!

Chassis is seriously shortened and also made smaller!

With a Kubelwagen rear axle and a sedan front axle…

as period newspaper pictures shows it was used on the “Wall of Death”!

First in Germany later it moved to Brazil…

In the collection the race car resides lately there’s a lot of other cars, very interesting we thought was also this Tatra… very nicely restored!!

And also this Tempo Matador panel van! Extremely rare! Never saw another one in the flesh!

and besides many other there was also a choice of Isetta’s!

After this breath-taking visit Luiz and his (highly pregnant) wife brought us to this very nice lunch place!

Thanks Luiz, You gave us a wonderful day!

Luiz dropped us off to meet another friend, Edgar… he awaited us at the Katrake Vw shop… highly specialised in VW suspensions!

Alexandre, the owner, his weak (VW) spot are standard beetles!

Mandatory sticker ceremony… this shop is BBT approved!!

From right to left BBT Jerry, Alexandre and yours truly… new friends for life!!

Today we fly to the south of Brazil for many more…. so stay tuned!

Thursday and friday we visited more factories, let’s start with a tail light company, who will make our Bay window tail lights soon!

This is the raw material for your tail light lenses!

Very nice and well organised, clean factory!!

and on to the next, just a street view of a Sao Paolo suburb, traffic is NOT alone in Antwerp, but also over here…:)

Next was a real cool and small factory who is specialised in emergency brake handles and smaller quantity parts…

Yes excenter presses are absolutely my favourite machines…

and on to the next, discussing more push rod tubes with Mr Wilson… compare the reproductions with NOS ones, and learn what is changed on a push rod tube in the last 40 years orso…

The cut away model learned us a lot… I could never imagine that there was so much technology in a “stupid” push rod tube!

followed by an extra ordinary mandatory dinner, with many caiparinha, beer, and off course a lot of meat!

Friday morning first stop was IGP, our trusty sheet metal supplier… IGP is a real big factory!

…with many and especially huge presses!

Jerry was pretty impressed for sure!

Floorplates ready for paint…

… and painted…

the IGP parts been “dipped” in a water based coating…

as I said, IGP is a huge operation!

Jerry is inspecting some moulds in the tooling dept.

From IGP we drove to one of the worlds largest ignition cable manufacturers, around two million sets a year been produced here!

Everything is controlled, and even weighted!

A fresh delivery for Bosch, fitted almost in my pockets…:)

From the ignition cable factory we drove to the port for a meeting with our new consolidator, we ship a 40ft container every 4 weeks now out of Santos, so time to talk!

Hey guys, be carefull with the BBT containers, will ya?

… and back to the hotel… finally a full night of sleep, the first full night since we arrived sunday….hmmmm…:)

We will have more Saturday and sunday, so stay tuned!!

Welcome to BBT’s Friday Product Update…

Now that Bob and Jerry are visiting our Brazilian suppliers and manufacturers, it doesn’t mean our purchase department is taking it easy.

To complete our range of wiring harnesses we now have the missing ones for VW beetle convertibles AND for 181… We know the pictures all look the same or about, but if you click on the picture it guides you directly to the right product in our online catalogue!

Are you ready to order?

0692-5859 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1958-59

0692-6060 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1960

0692-6161 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1961

0692-6264 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1962-64

0692-7171 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1971

0692-7272 Wiring harness Beetle Convertible 1972

0693-181 Main wiring harness Type 181

They were  for a long time unavailable, but now we have  these cool products back in stock !

0307 Cal-Look front window rubber Super Beetle 73-

0343-1 Outer pop-out seal (pair) Beetle -64

7417 Side Window seal fixed – Bus -07/67

1130 Brakeline bend tool

 We have these cool vent wing locks in our program since 2014, but…. we’ve found out that our description wasn’t very accurate!

We tested and fitted on to our buses to figure exactly out what it’s all about…

0517-950 and 0517-955 are for center and rear side ventwing  for your Bay window, our 0517-05 and 0517-06 are for the front vent wings (yes, the ones in your cab doors), these are the same as for Beetle 68- and type 3 71-

0517-950 Ventwing lock middle and rear – Bus 08/67-07/79 left

0517-955 Ventwing lock middle and rear – Bus 08/67-07/79 right

The BBT FPU team wishes you all a fantastic weekend, and to Bob and Jerry safe travels!!