cal-look


.
John Lazenby
	.
This article was ment to be just a decription of John Lazenby's car from the Der Kleiner Panzers I times, actually it's last, most known and appreciated version – from the early 70ties based on books by Keith Seume and internet forums discussions. In search of knowledge about it I've found some more information about previous configurations of this car and it made me curious. Going this route I've managed to make contact with John and he answered on a lot of questions bogging me down. In fact he helped me a lot with wrighting this text the way it shows the actual facts basing on John's memories from those days. This way we managed to write an article which shows the evolution of cal-look style in the original DKP club basing on the charateristic example – John's car. I would like to thank him a lot hereby for his priceless help and angellike patience for me. Moreover I'd like to point out, that in some matters we have to rely on John's photographic memory only, because this car wasn't featured in any magazne and amount of pictures of it is very limited.
.
.
John Lazenby is one of the founding members of the original, first generation of Der Kleiner Panzers Volkswagen Club, known before as Volkswagens Limited which he had created with people like Jim Edmiston, Pete Dayton, Gary Huggins, Dwight Magill, Dick Herr and Brian Rennie back in the summer of 1964.
.
..

.
.
.
John's note: " He DKP membership card is one of three stating "Council" on it. The other two were Pete Dayton and Gary Huggins. John suspects his is the only one existing today."
.
John had bought his first VW on July 31st 1963 – ruby red VW type 1 with a sunroof at now legendary ECONO Motors in Riverside, California owned by Joe Vittone... It was actually his second car. He had a 1953 Black Chrysler New Yorker Sedan. The story behind the decision to buy a VW is intersting though – the car he realy wanted at the time was 1963 a Maroon Ford Galaxie with a 406 engine and tri-power with a 4 speed trasmission and it was close to happen ing . His father actually noticed how powerful the car really was, and disagreed. The final choice fell on VW in frustration for not getting what he really wanted. As John was always a fan of cars, his VW had not stayed in stock form for a long time. By the year 1964 the car was already equipped in chrome wheels with Porsche hubcaps and a Judson Supercharger mounted to the 1200cc engine along with the first set of FourTuned fresh air headers ever made. The Judson had quickly burned a hole in a number 2 cylinder and John decided to replace the whole set – for an oversized, 83mm kit. Joe Schneider of Schneider Motors in Anaheim advised him a wilder than stock camshaft which he aquired at Potvin, a few blocks away from Schneider Motors. Engine was fed by a stock solex carb, Ignition operated by Bosch 010 distributor and a blue coil and exhaust gasses went out thru that same FourTuned Headers and a glasspack muffler at the end. Intersting story was the cluch the engine used – a Porsche diaphragm setup beeing very frequently replaced just as the owner was not able to spin the wheels at second gear... Yeah, the question for ET's is obvious after such declaration. Well, the car had been taken to the Lions Dragstrip at the time and ran mid 18s, which was very respectable back then. The car's ridehight was bonestock and it was running a set of Pirelli Cinturatos 165x15 tyres wrapped on wheels consisting of centers of Porsche chromies with wider Chevy outer. The interior was all black with stock seats and later added a Covico sport steering wheel, with his girlfriends name written on the horn button. - t he name "Christie", later became his wife. The Sun Tachometer was mounted on a L-shaped strip of aluminium located between headlight and wiper switch. Glovebox door and radi o speaker grills were chrome plated. After a graduation from Anaheim High John went on summer vacation with his friend John Kerr and stayed with "his" grandmother in Denver, Colorado with his bug obviously. The paitnjob got some paint chips while driving through the deserted landscape and because of that John decided to get it painted. The choice went to Cadillac Firemist Green.
.
.

.

.

.
.
John's note: ''The three photos of me with the car when it was Firemist Green were taken by Jim Edmiston at his parents home in La Habra, CA. The girl in the photo is Mary Ann Edmiston, Jim's youngest sister. She was and still is a very special person in my life. You will note in the photo with Mary Ann I have something in my right hand. That is a sponge as I was in the process of waxing the car which is something that was done at least once a day back then.''
.
.
Then came antother engine combo – quite popular so called '1700' – a 69mm crankshaft with 88mm pistons/cylinders operated by Engle 110. It had a 2 barrel Holley Bugspray carb on Auto Haus isolated manifold with compression ratio around 10:1 with S&S exhaust header. Stock size valves , a mild port job and heads flycut for high compression. That engine was built by Ron Flemming at Berg's shop on Lemon St. in Orange, CA because Ron and Greg Aronson had worked there. Both Fleming and Aronson were working at Berg's shop at that time - this is pre F&A . To top it off, the gerabox has been built at Bergs with close ratio 3 rd and 4 th gear. The car in this configuration ran mid 15s.
.

.
John's note: ''The sign with the car in that photo is the same one two photos below.''
.

.

.
.
There is a gap in car's evolution in reference to what was happening in the club at the time bacause in April 1967 John Lazenby was taken to the US Navy for two year service in Viet Nam war. About that time his clubmates' appetite for horspower increased, Greg Aronson's white car had taken it's form and the front end lowering started to spread among the club members. John's car has been lowered about 1969. John happened to run the car with American Racing Torq Thrust wheels with chevy bolt pattern using adaptors, but they were sticking out the fenders. This was on the rear wheels only. The fronts were still the Porsche style chromies.
.
The final version of this car, known from pictures started taking its shape in 1971, when John decided to bring the car to the place he get it painted for the previous time and to change its color again - this time Warbonnet Yellow, later to be nicknamed 'Butternut'. John wasn't actually happy with the final effect this time, and decided to move the car to Becker's for doing it (Warbonnet Yellow) for the final time - right. The wheels happened to be American Magnesium in VW bolt pattern, even though John was looking for a set of BRMs. He could not source them for some time and bought the first pair of Americans accidentally from a girl passing him by in a Baja bug for $40. Later Doug Haydon contacted American Racing and he and I purchased their entire remaining inventory of VW Mags. It turned out that the Americans were far more rare, stronger and I even think lighter in weight. This is how he ended up with 5 new wheels which you see in the photos.
.
.

.

.

.
.
John's note: ''The Butternut sign is the same one shown later with me in my garage that I treasure along with Jim's sign. Not the DKP banner flying in the background. I don't know if that is the "one" I still own, but I do have probably the only one of the originals existing.''
.
.
Last cam the running gear – engine and transmission. The engine was built by himself , but all the machine work were done at F& A Performance (Flemming and Aronson without Mark Thurber at that time) basing on a new German dual relief valve case and an Okrasa 78.4 crankshaft whitch moved 88mm pistons through VW connecting rods. The camshaft was (probably) an Engle FK 89 with a set of EMPI ratio rockers. The heads were prepeared by Ron Flemming. T he valves were larger, but he doesn't remember the sizes. The ports were done, but nothing radical. At this point John doesn't remember much about them other than at the shop there were stairs to a second level. As your heads got closer to having Ron do them they moved up the steps. Atop the the tall EMPI manifolds resided the mighty 48 IDA Webers operated by Berg linkage. Exhaust gasses were drawn out by the merged header of S&S brand throu gh a Glasspack muffler. The duty of cooling and filtering the oil was a full flow system connected to a external Rapid Cool oil cooler. Ignition was a Vertex (Joe Hunt) Magneto. Gearbox was built at Berg's with welded close ratio 3rd and 4th gear. back at the time when the 69x88 motor was done. The traction was supplied by Berg traction bar. Berg never offered chrome traction bars, so John had it plated by a local shop. Braking system was absolutely stock, as there was no performance products in that matter back then. The front end was lowered simply by removal of some torsion bars. When the law changed and the lowered front in VW beetles became illegal, John installed a set of Delco air shocks with an abbility to raise the front when needed. This was acomplished by vacuum from the Empi manifolds and a control box mounted in the glove box along the radio. The brown interior by Brad's Auto Upholstery occured uafter car was painted warbonnet yellow in 1971. The steering wheel was a very rare Butler wood with polished aluminum spokes out of England. Gauges were the yellow face VDO units. There was no ignition switch, but only a start button with a secret switch to start and stop the engine. The car was equipped with a DDS T-handle shifter. It had a mirror panel made of the glove box for the driver's side and a center panel where the radio was. These panels were covered in a choclate brown swade material bordered by a matching color vinyl - the same as the seats done by Brad's. Brad used this swade material for the biscuts in the seats and also the headliner. This was nothing like anyone had ever done before with a VW. John got the idea from seeing the VW that VoA had done in a limo form at the time. John's always bet on comfort and upscale over having the fastest car in town, but it was still very fast - Yes it was and always on the DKP top ten board.
.
Later on John got tired of the 48's and wanted car more user friendly. He installed 42DCNF-9 Webers on Berg manifolds and replaced the exhaust with a stock S&S system and heater boxes. Also the close ratio gears went away. 'At that time I really like the car as it could go anywhere and always get you home with good mileage and no issues.' - John says.
.
.

.
.
Source: Keith Seume 'California look VW', Cal-look.no/lounge, John Lazenby Photos: Jim 'Sarge' Edminston, John Lazenby Special Thanks: To John Lazenby himself for delivering exact and complete information, patiennce for the editor. This article could not have happened without him. Thanks, John!
.

John Lazenby

This article was ment to be just a decription of John Lazenby's car from the Der Kleiner Panzers I times, actually it's last, most known and appreciated version – from the early 70ties based on books by Keith Seume and internet forums discussions.

In search of knowledge about it I've found some more information about previous configurations of this car and it made me curious. Going this route I've managed to make contact with John and he answered on a lot of questions bogging me down. In fact he helped me a lot with wrighting this text the way it shows the actual facts basing on John's memories from those days.

This way we managed to write an article which shows the evolution of cal-look style in the original DKP club basing on the charateristic example – John's car.

I would like to thank him a lot hereby for his priceless help and angellike patience for me.

Moreover I'd like to point out, that in some matters we have to rely on John's photographic memory only, because this car wasn't featured in any magazne and amount of pictures of it is very limited.

John Lazenby is one of the founding members of the original, first generation of Der Kleiner Panzers Volkswagen Club, known before as Volkswagens Limited which he had created with people like Jim Edmiston, Pete Dayton, Gary Huggins, Dwight Magill, Dick Herr and Brian Rennie back in the summer of 1964.

John's note: " He DKP membership card is one of three stating "Council" on it. The other two were Pete Dayton and Gary Huggins. John suspects his is the only one existing today."

John had bought his first VW on July 31st 1963 – ruby red VW type 1 with a sunroof at now legendary ECONO Motors in Riverside, California owned by Joe Vittone...

It was actually his second car. He had a 1953 Black Chrysler New Yorker Sedan. The story behind the decision to buy a VW is intersting though – the car he realy wanted at the time was 1963 a Maroon Ford Galaxie with a 406 engine and tri-power with a 4 speed trasmission and it was close to happen ing . His father actually noticed how powerful the car really was, and disagreed. The final choice fell on VW in frustration for not getting what he really wanted.

As John was always a fan of cars, his VW had not stayed in stock form for a long time.

By the year 1964 the car was already equipped in chrome wheels with Porsche hubcaps and a Judson Supercharger mounted to the 1200cc engine along with the first set of FourTuned fresh air headers ever made. The Judson had quickly burned a hole in a number 2 cylinder and John decided to replace the whole set – for an oversized, 83mm kit. Joe Schneider of Schneider Motors in Anaheim advised him a wilder than stock camshaft which he aquired at Potvin, a few blocks away from Schneider Motors. Engine was fed by a stock solex carb, Ignition operated by Bosch 010 distributor and a blue coil and exhaust gasses went out thru that same FourTuned Headers and a glasspack muffler at the end. Intersting story was the cluch the engine used – a Porsche diaphragm setup beeing very frequently replaced just as the owner was not able to spin the wheels at second gear... Yeah, the question for ET's is obvious after such declaration.
Well, the car had been taken to the Lions Dragstrip at the time and ran mid 18s, which was very respectable back then. The car's ridehight was bonestock and it was running a set of Pirelli Cinturatos 165x15 tyres wrapped on wheels consisting of centers of Porsche chromies with wider Chevy outer. The interior was all black with stock seats and later added a Covico sport steering wheel, with his girlfriends name written on the horn button. - t he name "Christie", later became his wife. The Sun Tachometer was mounted on a L-shaped strip of aluminium located between headlight and wiper switch. Glovebox door and radi o speaker grills were chrome plated.
After a graduation from Anaheim High John went on summer vacation with his friend John Kerr and stayed with "his" grandmother in Denver, Colorado with his bug obviously. The paitnjob got some paint chips while driving through the deserted landscape and because of that John decided to get it painted.
The choice went to Cadillac Firemist Green.

John's note: ''The three photos of me with the car when it was Firemist Green were taken by Jim Edmiston at his parents home in La Habra, CA. The girl in the photo is Mary Ann Edmiston, Jim's youngest sister. She was and still is a very special person in my life. You will note in the photo with Mary Ann I have something in my right hand. That is a sponge as I was in the process of waxing the car which is something that was done at least once a day back then.''

Then came antother engine combo – quite popular so called '1700' – a 69mm crankshaft with 88mm pistons/cylinders operated by Engle 110. It had a 2 barrel Holley Bugspray carb on Auto Haus isolated manifold with compression ratio around 10:1 with S&S exhaust header. Stock size valves , a mild port job and heads flycut for high compression. That engine was built by Ron Flemming at Berg's shop on Lemon St. in Orange, CA because Ron and Greg Aronson had worked there. Both Fleming and Aronson were working at Berg's shop at that time - this is pre F&A . To top it off, the gerabox has been built at Bergs with close ratio 3 rd and 4 th gear. The car in this configuration ran mid 15s.

John's note: ''The sign with the car in that photo is the same one two photos below.''

There is a gap in car's evolution in reference to what was happening in the club at the time bacause in April 1967 John Lazenby was taken to the US Navy for two year service in Viet Nam war. About that time his clubmates' appetite for horspower increased, Greg Aronson's white car had taken it's form and the front end lowering started to spread among the club members.

John's car has been lowered about 1969.
John happened to run the car with American Racing Torq Thrust wheels with chevy bolt pattern using adaptors, but they were sticking out the fenders. This was on the rear wheels only. The fronts were still the Porsche style chromies.

The final version of this car, known from pictures started taking its shape in 1971, when John decided to bring the car to the place he get it painted for the previous time and to change its color again - this time Warbonnet Yellow, later to be nicknamed 'Butternut'.

John wasn't actually happy with the final effect this time, and decided to move the car to Becker's for doing it (Warbonnet Yellow) for the final time - right.
The wheels happened to be American Magnesium in VW bolt pattern, even though John was looking for a set of BRMs. He could not source them for some time and bought the first pair of Americans accidentally from a girl passing him by in a Baja bug for $40. Later Doug Haydon contacted American Racing and he and I purchased their entire remaining inventory of VW Mags. It turned out that the Americans were far more rare, stronger and I even think lighter in weight. This is how he ended up with 5 new wheels which you see in the photos.

John's note: ''The Butternut sign is the same one shown later with me in my garage that I treasure along with Jim's sign. Not the DKP banner flying in the background. I don't know if that is the "one" I still own, but I do have probably the only one of the originals existing.''

Last cam the running gear – engine and transmission.

The engine was built by himself , but all the machine work were done at F& A Performance (Flemming and Aronson without Mark Thurber at that time) basing on a new German dual relief valve case and an Okrasa 78.4 crankshaft whitch moved 88mm pistons through VW connecting rods. The camshaft was (probably) an Engle FK 89 with a set of EMPI ratio rockers. The heads were prepeared by Ron Flemming. T he valves were larger, but he doesn't remember the sizes. The ports were done, but nothing radical. At this point John doesn't remember much about them other than at the shop there were stairs to a second level. As your heads got closer to having Ron do them they moved up the steps. Atop the the tall EMPI manifolds resided the mighty 48 IDA Webers operated by Berg linkage. Exhaust gasses were drawn out by the merged header of S&S brand throu gh a Glasspack muffler. The duty of cooling and filtering the oil was a full flow system connected to a external Rapid Cool oil cooler.

Ignition was a Vertex (Joe Hunt) Magneto.

Gearbox was built at Berg's with welded close ratio 3rd and 4th gear. back at the time when the 69x88 motor was done. The traction was supplied by Berg traction bar. Berg never offered chrome traction bars, so John had it plated by a local shop.
Braking system was absolutely stock, as there was no performance products in that matter back then. The front end was lowered simply by removal of some torsion bars. When the law changed and the lowered front in VW beetles became illegal, John installed a set of Delco air shocks with an abbility to raise the front when needed. This was acomplished by vacuum from the Empi manifolds and a control box mounted in the glove box along the radio.

The brown interior by Brad's Auto Upholstery occured uafter car was painted warbonnet yellow in 1971.

The steering wheel was a very rare Butler wood with polished aluminum spokes out of England. Gauges were the yellow face VDO units. There was no ignition switch, but only a start button with a secret switch to start and stop the engine. The car was equipped with a DDS T-handle shifter.
It had a mirror panel made of the glove box for the driver's side and a center panel where the radio was. These panels were covered in a choclate brown swade material bordered by a matching color vinyl - the same as the seats done by Brad's. Brad used this swade material for the biscuts in the seats and also the headliner. This was nothing like anyone had ever done before with a VW. John got the idea from seeing the VW that VoA had done in a limo form at the time. John's always bet on comfort and upscale over having the fastest car in town, but it was still very fast - Yes it was and always on the DKP top ten board.

Later on John got tired of the 48's and wanted car more user friendly. He installed 42DCNF-9 Webers on Berg manifolds and replaced the exhaust with a stock S&S system and heater boxes. Also the close ratio gears went away.
'At that time I really like the car as it could go anywhere and always get you home with good mileage and no issues.' - John says.

Source: Keith Seume 'California look VW', Cal-look.no/lounge, John Lazenby

Photos: Jim 'Sarge' Edminston, John Lazenby

Special Thanks: To John Lazenby himself for delivering exact and complete information, patiennce for the editor. This article could not have happened without him. Thanks, John!