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Before last day and first stop… Marilia a manufacturer of relays and switches… they will produce some switches for us…  could this be the most friendly company in Brazil?

From the moment we entered we felt at home at Marilia.

Alain check out the production of switch indicator components, almost all component and halfparts are made inside this factory…

Tooling department…

Plastic injection… the operator says hi to all BBT Blog friends and readers!

 Steel mfg dept of this factory… I love this machines, they’re automatic and work kind a like organs… I love to call them mechanical CNC machines, but actually better would be to call them CN machines, without last C…:)

Assembling of solenoids! Wowh this lovely lady says Hi again to all of You, the BBT Blog readers!

You recognise the print on your wiper switch?… it has to come from somewhere…:)

Many assembly lines… all well organised with the Lean system management… a kind of efficiency program we came across in several factories, but here LEAN is all finished and operating…  very effective…

 Hi-five also out of the production assembly lines!

 Another sweet girl says Hi to us here… Marilia is for sure the most friendly factory we have visit this trip!

Quality control is everything… here there’s no labels are printed as long as the screen is not green!

Every single relays and switch made in this  is tested and approved, this lady loved to say hi as well but ws in the middle of a testing cycle and the show has to go on…

Time for lunch… Alain seems to have found the salad bar!

Bob awaits the meat… Brazilian meat is the best on planet earth… tested and approved regularly by yours truly…:)

After lunch we visit this factory producing small engine parts and camshafts , very professional set up, many CNC machines…

Their warehouse is full of parts for immediate shipping…

Beetle camshafts… the reason we came here, samples are in our suitcase…:)

Production grinding of VW camshafts…

You need Camshaft blanks? They have “towers” of blanks over here! They sell around 4000 Beetle camshafts a month!

Not VW anymore, but they supply to many brands!

so far so good… more visits to more factories in the next two days, but Blog space don’t allow more reports anymore… Alain and myself hope You enjoyed the little travel with us… sorry we can’t give the taste of the food through the Blog as we would loved you had joined us on these terrific menu’s over here…

Brazil is a very nice country.. People are very very friendly, everywhere, every says bom Dia (hello) to everybody and smiles are on almost all of people’s faces, problems don’t exist (only in politics!!) what a relief, wish it was everywhere like this…

Especially to our guides this trip… Uncle Samy, Ricardo and Mauci … we enjoyed your company fully, and couldn’t have done this wonderful trip without you guys, thanks for driving us EVERYWHERE through crazy Sao Paolo traffic, thanks for translations, for the help with our internet connections, to arrange our visits, actually thanks for the whole trip!

The last words to ALL the wonderful people from Brazil… thank You so much for your hospitality, we enjoyed fully and can’t wait to come back for more… we will always remember You as a warm community with lots of smiles, and open-minded people.. keep up, we all know You suffer the recession, but this can not break that wonderful mentality! Your real strength is inside your hearts and we’re completely behind you and will try to buy as many Fusca parts we can to help our little bit to your economy what we can! The Itamar Fusca saved the country once, let’s try to spare parts for the Fusca save the country this time around!

One day, another three factories, lunch, dinner and an airplane ride back to Sao Paolo… yes we “deserved” this trip! …:)

used kombis everywhere in Brazil… feels good…:)

First stop… Hubner/ Auto Linea… Manufacturer of engine cases and cylinder heads… yes, the news is out now, we do work on a new cylinder head, because our old ones are not up to standards and we dislike Chinese… so we started a while ago the new secret project called “German cylinder head”… no less than Three NOS  (Real NOS German!) been provided as samples, and today we check the progress in this project!

Hubner is a state of the art factory, with “tons” of CNC machinery… here ‘s a small part of the Vw cylinder head production…

Main products for Hubner is the production of Mercedes-Benz Truck  engine blocks..; believe me or not they sell more of those as Mercedes themselves! Production is just impressive…

R&D use extreme high technology German machines for testing, measuring and drawing… this latest technology is used to create our  new heads as well…

This is a production honing machine, slightly different from the ones we’re used to see in Machine shops all over the world…:)

More engine blocks…

ever saw a 4 cylinder Boxer diesel engine???

After Hubner/Auto Linea we went to our manufacturer for our New 6 volt regulator… and they gave us a lunch to die for… everybody seems to be convinced that this will be a good selling product! The lunch? Was incredible…this restaurant is voted regularly the best burger in the world… Alain and me can testify this is nothing but the truth!

Thanks Alisson and Luiz!

Here it is, in different stages… the lower pictures are the  new BBT 6 volt regulator that will work what it supposed to be made for, no cheap chinese stupid part, but  well-engineered super part!! Above some larger regulators to understand the working of an electronic regulator… complete below are our conductor board, actually the regulator it selves… funny uh?  The engineers here are extremely high skilled!

oh good news, test face is over, production started now!!!

Close up for the patented conduction boards…

and here mounted in the housing…

The factory is like a clinic, some departments we could only see from behind glass… dust free is not just a saying here!

Full automated assembly of the conduction boards!

Next to Igasa, our manufacturer of Front axles (and gastanks)

here start the production from our front axles, believe me or not…:)

and yes, they need serious machines to produce front axles…

Can You believe these pipes will become close to 500 ft axles, I’m not joking!

Serious punching machines, this is a real serious manufacturing plant!

Press works…

line up of 12ton presses!

the “puma” part of the front axles…stamped in the back!

New tooling almost finished for the shock towers …

And so another day passed by, we had dinner (Thanks Bino!) and ran for our plane back to Sao Paolo, only to found out had a 2 hour delay… planes…:(

Stay tuned for more crazy factory visits tomorrow!

Last sunday, right in between all our business meetings, our friend Francisco picked us up at our hotel to drive to a car show with a swap meet here in Sao Paolo Brazil.

Beetles in all colors and models, kombis everywhere, but especially all the special Brazilian VW models You don’t see no place else!

swap meet was packed and loaded… scored a couple of ubercool logo’s for my personal collection… souvenir from this pretty hectic trip…:)

There was MANY people, a real Brazilian thing….

Vw Variant, Brazilian market only… nice huh?

Crazy Gurgel… looks like an armoured car!

Hey Pascal, this ones for you! watch the base-ball bat fixture!

Another more “moderate” Gurgel…

Hmmmm Yammie!

See the difference  between a Variant(red) and a Brasilia (blue)… they’re different cars! totally different…

Another lover… Brazilian made Karmann Ghia… YES! the tail lights are original… for us Type 3, here “just” Ghia… cool huh?

also bumpers are slightly different… it’s so cool to point out the differences…. we enjoyed sunday morning fully!

Harley Davidson and VW’s, seems to match real well, also in South America!

Nice Kombi deluxe…

Panels are rather rare here, they all worked till death!

This cool accessory seemed to be a dealer installed item… don’t know,  but as its pouring rain here sometimes, it might help to not get soaked!

There was also a lot of other classic cars on this show… very old ones too! Classic cars are living big time for sure here in Brazil!

Extreme rare Brazilian Standard… the dashboard of a Brazilian standard was a different stamping! Believe me or not, makes this car stand out BIG TIME!!

Nicolas, this one’s for you my son…

even the odd 356 showed up! I liked the license plate… try to figure it out…:)

american iron, in all colors to choose from…:)

Hold!!! what’s this??? I cracked and bought it… and even place it here on my blog… this car was on my bucket list for 10 years… and NO!!!! it is not watercooled!

First two production years of the GOL (Not to mess up with Golf please) they came with aircooled engines in the front…  the rebel in me will take this car to all European aircooled only shows off course… will love the discussions from the specialists… oh btw… I learned so much this trip there’s two more new cars on my bucket list now…

Big truck at the entry!

loads of people…

Karmann TC, another Brazilian exclusive…

and a 4 door sedan… used to have one like this a mere 20 years orso ago…

Another nice pressed bumper deluxe

how cool of an accessory is this???

what a beautiful sunday morning we spend! weather was finally great! (first day of our trip) and cars and people been cool! I scrapped another one from my bucket list, and learned A LOT about Brazilian VW’s, very important, never forget, Brazil is the second VW country in the entire WORLD!!!

Francisco Thanks buddy, this was a great experience, hope I can give You same experience back one day….