29 april 2015 - BBT Travels
All good things do come to an end, also this trip… After leaving Darrell’s shop I headed South to the bay area again, as i was flying out of San Francisco this time…
But first have to deliver my trailer load to our shippers…
Leaving Sheridan took me over a lot of smaller Highways back to I-5
The stretch over I-5 in South Oregon is very nice and very green too!
Always nice to see Street Rods pass You by…
Welcome in Bear country!
Delivered the Porsche to the shippers, and organised all my things to do it was time to put the White Whale (my Ford Excursion) in bath…
… and in Pyamas to go to sleep… after 5000iles this trip it can sleep till my next visit, probably in August.
and so the Blue KLM plane awaits me in San Francisco for my flight back home…
another succesful trip… with some good finds, but especially a lot of miles and hard-working, but this is considered the “nice part of my job”….
28 april 2015 - Friends of the house
Darrell Vittone, son of Joe Vittone, founder of Empi. We learned to know each other a couple of years ago and stay in contact ever since.
Darrell used to own his own shop (the Race shop) after sold to Filter Dynamics. Found out that it was real hard to make money in a race shop he relocated to Sheridan Oregon, where he dedicated most of his time in making special and tuning parts for water-cooled VW’s… a whole other thing then he ever did…
In the show room there is things from the past… like these cool license plate frames…
and a schwimmwagen… I guided Darrell when he acquired this one…
The original supercharged engine from 1966, once he tried to sell this for 500USD at a Bug In, no takers…. what would this be worth today?????
The warehouse and shop are very extreme well organised, Darrell retired a couple of years ago and his “like a son” Collin took over, as dedicated as Darrell himself always led this company!
Darrell current race car, a 1966 Ghia was acquired last year… this is the car he try to beat land records in the 36hp class (that’s 30DIN HP for us Europeans) … what he does big time, two weeks ago he eneterd this car in Palmdale, where he raised the track record from a mere 104 to a big 141Mph in his class!
nice huh?
Darrell and yours truly before the car Darrell has “on loan” from famous Scottish collector Russell Ritchie.
This was a highlight of my trip for sure! Thanks for lunch Darrell, this was super cool!
Darrell will be visit BBT HQ on our next open house, bookmark your calendar and talk to this Vintage VW heroe in person on BBT’s open house! June 18….
Ok heading south, in two more days I fly home and still have a couple of things to do and many miles to cover!
27 april 2015 - BBT Travels
My friends Eric and Brian in Spokane are always cool to visit… I had to pick up some “left overs” from last visit in October, so why not hang out for a while!
Eric just had this other “toy” picked up… a little tractor with a “pancake” type three engine… so weird!
Yours truly would have tried it out but one carb was giving a problem currently…
Looking at the drive train…. crazy stuff!
After all the fun, it was time for some serious food… this place was cool!
Being a bikers pub with inside, yes inside!, parking for bikes this was a cool set up… VW bus do serve drinks in the weekends…
In the corner was sitting this cab of a 1954 truck… they converted in a BBQ! Left and right front hood each had a grill and the cabin was a real smoke house!
Inside was a cozy little bar,
with a splitty ft panel on the ceiling!
Well time to leave in the morning after spending the night in Ritsville only 60 miles south of Spokane…… hey look what I do have on my trailer now?
1957 Porsche 356 A coupe (T1 body) very extreme solid, right side Ft fender and left rear have been clipped light years ago, but nothing bad… still original floors in decent condition…… and yes, I do have doors, glass, seats, ft hood and a bunch of other parts for it….:)
Driving west, direction of Portland Oregon… another 600 mile trek… spotted this vanagon (T25 or T3 in europe) down the road… after Tri Cities (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick) the whole drive is almost on the side of this crazy big Columbia river… another day of driving with beautiful views…
Beautiful mountain top, driving west on I 84 just past Hwy 97…
Endless roads with more full size trucks…
Driving through being on a schedule this was the best of my “skyline” views of Portland, sorry I could not get it completely, but it looks like a great city!
Driving more West we enter what is called, the Oregon Coast, a very beautiful area, with sleepy towns… This is my destination for today… Sheridan Oregon, who lives in Sheridan?
Stay tuned and find out tomorrow! I will pay a visit to one of the largest names in our hobby of aircooled VW history !