arrived late night yesterday in Ningbo China (still suffering that f***ing cold) a city we hardly know of, but with a population of around 5 million not small by any means, Trough China it seems they are known for production, a lot of electric components are build here they told us, also home base of Youngor, China’s premier fashion brand, who owns a whole city on its own here…

Today my buddy Jimmy “Sprintstar” manufacturer called in sick, but finally had his two collegeaus picking us up for no less as two factory tours, dirty and misty, but steel wheels is not exactly a very clean production process…

stamping of the centers, the heart of the wheel…

and making of rims

finishing outer edges

paint process

centers for the sprintstars, out of new moukds again, longer lip for welding without burning the chrome on the rim…just like the originals! The area manager was so happy they got finally a good product out of the last remaining chrome plant from entire Ningbo area, last year two other chrome plants had shut down from goverment for enviromental reasons.

wheels, plenty of wheels….

surprised a lot what I learned again today, especially regarding quality control, we really moved a LOT forward to a future with way better production! We reached a way to get a quality control in every step now of the production process, this means a lot for a Chinese company! And we could convince factory area managers about how important that is for us as collectors…even more special for a Chinese factory! Its so different when You get a direct contact to these guys!

We deserve a good night of sleep before taking the train to Ruian…. for more factory visit….  so stay tuned!

Linda and Bob, your real time China reporters…:)

A cold, tremendous jet lag from being all over the world in no time, fever, tons of work, delay’s, it couldn’t stop us to take that invivitation from Mr Komori and his Flat4 squad to come to the 2nd Klassisches VW Treffen in Japan, last weekend, wowh! did we had a ball!

Beer always taste better @  Moon Cafe in Yokohama, Thanks to Mr. Shige san for his incredible understanding, hospitality and total care at our arrival day…

and off it went, Saturday morning 8.00am (thats early with jetlag believe me!) we left with a group of VW’s that only seemed to grow the further we went, VW cruizin’ japanese style, Harmony everywhere….

Welcome to Japan, outside Tokyo, but also here Japanese signs and power leads, everywhere!

“Get a car from that truck”… the Japanese way….

Dramatic skies give always cool pictures, even better in Japan, when most of You woke up, our first day came to an end…. 9 hours a head of time from home…its Saturday night…. a Heb on the terras from the partyhall,

Cool cars, extreme cool cars, and even more extreme cool cars, the level of entrants was high, Japanese are really “into” things! Believe me!

Nice cars on visitors parking too!

Mr Komori with his right hand Nao and his entire staff, these are the guys that made this happen, congratulations guys, You did a hell of a job! perfection counts in Japan, your organisation stands for proof of that!

Yep, menu’s in restaurants are written in Japanese too! oh, these are only the desserts!…. I couldn’t pronounce it at all, but it tasted like heaven, Thanks Nao San, You picked the right one!

with this picture Linda and me like to thank Mr and Mrs Komori and Nao expressively  for the use of this really extra ordinary car,  a Rometsch Lawrence, even for me, the very first time I ever drove one! We had great fun, the car was super sorted out and drove exactly like it looked… stunning!

picture credit to our all time friend Daisuke from Street VW’s magazine

Well we better wave goodbye (we gave the car back no problem…:)) and till next edition for sure, we don’t want to miss at all! Hopefully we see some more foreigners then “only” four… by coincidence all from Belgium… like this year. Japan is only as far flying as California from home, and VW diversity is really as inspiring as there culture… more then worth a visit!

Picture credit to mr Shige from Moon fame, hey Nao, is that not a yellow Camaro in the reflection on the car?????

Filip