Last thursday was bank holiday in Belgium. So BBT Pascal and yours truly steered our 1952 all original Beetle convertible to Paris. A perfect timing.

We had set up a “reunion” between our gorgeous survivor convertible and its second owner, Mr Thomas and his family, who owned and drove the car from 1961 till 1969… fond memories…

Also Cyril , a free-lance photographer for the Super VW Magazine was present and made a super nice feature You can read in your favorite French magazine any time soon!

From left to right, Cyril the photographer, Mme Thomas, Mr Thomas, their son Dominique and far right BBT Pascal… I felt naked in this company having no beard!

Mr Thomas is 89 years old, and anti digital, so he took his pictures of the car with his real reflex camera on film!

Mr Thomas was delighted, he wanted to see everything on the car, and even inspected the engine compartment!! It was amazing what he still knew about the car. He has real fond memories, and always loved his little beetle, he never saw his car anymore since he sold it in 1969!

oh yes, time to get behind the wheel!

Was there a small tear? Could be!

and also Mme Thomas had to come aboard!! Incredible picture moments, and goose bump times, believe me!

Just like in the sixties, shall they leave for a ride?

The smile on their faces… priceless…

Fully crash gearbox? No problem for Mr Thomas, he drove the car through Paris like star! (dept 94 for the people who like to have the geographic details)  I must honestly admit he grinded less gears as I do!

What a blast we had… we left home at 6.30 am and came back at 1.00 in the morning next day, back and forth to Paris by regular roads, who needs freeways, not with a split window convertible, do we? We used all 25 Horses on board and ran them hard!

We like to thank especially Cyril for the pictures, the story and the help with the little (gas) breakdown. We like to thank A LOT Mme Thomas for the remarkable lunch (their house is on the board of the Seine river)

And we like to thank endlessly the stars of the day, Mr Thomas and “his” old but trusty unrestored fully operational 1952 Splitwindow beetle!

Oh, the car Mr Thomas had before the 1952 Convertible was a VW schwimmwagen and he participated regularly in the Parisienne Schwimmwagen club outings in the fifties!! That story You can read next Sunday!

So stay tuned!

A nice and happy VW sunday to everybody!

After the January wind storms destroyed our existing sign, we had to order a new one… we’re very happy last Tuesday was finally D-Day and the new sign was put on our pole!

Proudly we show off our BBT logo now 11 meters high!

The big round logo’s will be lighted at night with the most modern LED technology!

Now you know what sign to look for!

We got new delivery of welded counterweight crankshaft… because of the buzz about, we decided toi get a separate part n° for every different size of grinding.So you can order the exact desired size… there’s a small price break for larger oversize cranks….

The welded counterweight crankshaft is still Bob’s favorite as it’s the only crank he never saw break! They’ve been made forever by his friend José in California and do the job as no other!

Counterweight cranks let your engine runs smoother, gives more horsepower, rev faster and give better mileage because everything runs way more in balance,

Get yours now!!

1600-010-010 Crankshaft with counterweight 69mm +0.25/+0.25 rod
1600-010-020 Crankshaft with counterweight 69mm +0.25/+0.50 rod
1600-020-020 Crankshaft with counterweight 69mm +0.50/+0.50 rod
1600-020-030 Crankshaft with counterweight 69mm +0.50/+0.75 rod
1600-030-020 Crankshaft with counterweight 69mm +0.75/+0.50 rod

We found a crazy large old supply of these oil deflector plates that mounts under your generator base for all type 1 engines from 1960 upwards…

This is absolute top quality and German-made!!

1930-010 deflectorplate under alternator support

In our current efforts to get all dashknobs we add this week the insert for the ventilation system knob. This inserts fits long and short knobs (padded en painted dashboard)

The missing knobs and inserts in our program are on their way! stay tuned!

0544-152 Centercap fresh air knob

These headlights have, in contrast to # 0660, an e-approval which becomes the more and more important for the Motor Vehicle Inspections. As these headlights are from Hella, we know that they are of an excellent quality. The headlight rim with 3-bolts are included as well

 0660-5 Headlight with rim, Hella, e-marked

The BBT FPU team wish You a wonderful weekend, with loads of sun and tons of VW fun!