i think its fair to say that im a 'new generation' dubber, but i wonder, as i see some of the 'ricers' around town and at times laugh at them and think 'why would you bother' - would this have been the reaction of those 'hotting up' their Veedubs in the 70s and 80s.
Are the Excels of today, with their body kits, spoilers and added weight with standard engines, equivalent to the veedubs of the 70s and 80s.
In what light were they seen?
I assume the V8 boys would have laughed at the humble Veedub the same way they still do now at any 4 cylinder.
keen to hear some thoughts.
colonel mustard ·
slow day at work mate... :P
ryana89 ·
An interesting thought but think this, a VW from the 60's/70's can do infinite Kilometres and still keep going, i think youd be lucky to get 200,000km out of a Hyundai or anything of similar quality. Kinda hard to compare them when VW's are in a completly (higher) different league. Also VW's can be made to handle better and perform better, ricers today are only good for ugly body kits and farty exhaust notes🙅
Ryan😀
ian.mezz ·
we use to go street drag racing back in the 80s at Kooragang island and there was lots of fast veedubs and datos.the V8 boys didn't laugh long😂 😂
DaveCarter ·
I don't know about that ryan. I owned a corolla that had done close to 400 000 ks and my current one has done 340 000 and still going strong. I love volkswagens but you have to admit that ricers, well toyotas atleast, are crazy reliable
colonel mustard ·
i think there is one thing that we can all agree on, hyundi's are crap.
ian.mezz ·
colonel mustard wrote:i think there is one thing that we can all agree on, hyundi's are crap.
yeah back in the 80s there was a few Turbo vw and holdens getting around
do they turbo excels??
colonel mustard ·
people may turbo excels... but that doesnt make them any less crap...
kombibob ·
my excel gets 600ks + to a 40 ltr tank
nothing crap about that👍
ian.mezz ·
good onya colonel mustard
upsetting a Hyundai owner😂
trickysimon ·
Still not as bad as those EVOs.....aye Craig?😉
GTMac ·
kombibob wrote:my excel gets 600ks + to a 40 ltr tank
nothing crap about that👍
Yeah but we are also assuming you havent tried to make it look fast or put Supercheap tart up accessories on it?
Most V8 heads dont give cred to anything else but those with a brain would understand the quality of the VW and in fact you can get them to go hard and still have reliability. There have been few worked Hyundais going around with turbo kits but its all the hardware around them that fails even if the engine is done well..........lets start with the gearbox (BANG).
colonel mustard ·
Should I bother explaining myself... no. I just dislike hyundi's. And yes, I do know the i30 deisel gets nearly 1000km's to a tank. but, you may not ever get to fill up more than 200 times..
ryana89 ·
Sorry to sound like that Dave, i wouldnt really consider a corolla a ricer, cause i do realise they go forever aswell. And generally ricers a flogged and mistreated, theirfore dont last long....... right? Also hyundai's arn't neccessarily crap, you simply get what you pay for. Now the real nasty crap cars would be Kia's, they're absolutly shocking
Ryan🤪
Mick058 ·
hmmm...i guess im more after the whole 'image' of it. I assume veedubs wouldn't of been viewed as a luxury or fancy car right? So those that were 'done up', would others think 'why bother' etc.
Just interested of the history of it - i didnt get to live it!
Joel ·
ryana89 wrote:An interesting thought but think this, a VW from the 60's/70's can do infinite Kilometres and still keep going, i think youd be lucky to get 200,000km out of a Hyundai or anything of similar quality. Kinda hard to compare them when VW's are in a completly (higher) different league. Also VW's can be made to handle better and perform better, ricers today are only good for ugly body kits and farty exhaust notes🙅
Ryan😀
not exactly
they have a good life span of engines from that era but its not real good by todays standards
type1 engines are due for atleast a headjob by 100,000 miles which is only 160,000km and most need a bottom end freshen up not long after that
the factory engine from DUB74L has 380,000ish K on it but is on its 2nd rebuild and not far off needing a tickle up
korean coffee tins are crap but they still generally make high 200s if they arent owned by a dumbass who thinks checking the oil is done by the mechanic every 6 months
Bloke over the road has a 96 Excel which has 327k on the clock with an untouched engine and i saw plenty of otthers like that working at the garage
still doesnt change the fact i hate them😂
rose ·
but what have you spent on repair bills😂😂
kombibob wrote:my excel gets 600ks + to a 40 ltr tank
nothing crap about that👍
ryana89 ·
So its all down to the owner pretty much wether the car will last..... 327,000!!!! on an excel WOW, simply goes to show what looking after a car can do
Ryan
Joel ·
yeah country cars always have longer lives than city cars too
my mates 68 beetle is a country car and has over 1million KMs on it
its on engine #3 which current has close on 200,000miles on it but still runs amazingly well just gets oil light flicker at idle when its hot
there was a 2001 fairlane forsale here yesterday thats an ex hire car and has 690,000kms on the clock
thats taxi status 😂
rose ·
Just hire Running on Empty and you will learn what it was like back in the 80's all great classic movie. Come to think of it I might dust it off and watch it this week end.
Back in the 80's there where no crappy ricer cars. The dato's use to get looked at but nothing like the silly ricer cars today. I use to own a 6cyl HR holden that I had fur on the dash and velvet on the door trims and a alpine stereo with a seperate equaliser, lumpy cam etc and lowered whick I thought was pretty cool.
ian.mezz ·
Are Veedubbers the Ricers of the past , Nope
1200 Datos, 120y 200b, ford lasers, Galants, Mazda
Joel ·
u left out leyland marinas and chrysler centuras 😂😂
ryana89 ·
Hmm just wondering, are their ricer owners that actually change anything mechanical to their car... other than a farty exhaust?
kombibob ·
rose wrote:not a thing in the last 2 years i have owned it, and it does 110ks a day up and down a mountain.
el concreto also does 110 ks a day up and down the mountain uses much more fuel and needs more attention than just an oil change once i a while to keep doing it.
trust me i love my dubs like a crazy man but for a cheap realiable car there is nothing wrong with a excel, but no i would never want to rice it up it even came with 17" wheels when i bought it and i replace them with standards straight away. lol
.
but what have you spent on repair bills😂😂
kombibob wrote:my excel gets 600ks + to a 40 ltr tank
nothing crap about that👍
rose ·
only some bits from fatiguing rocker studs from drag racing my bug maybe around $100
And all I pay for the Hilux is just service items just $3.50/ltr of oill and $3.80 for oil filter service items for the Hilux
You are a very lucky owner than for an excel not to cost you any extra money.
I think the Hilux is made in Tailand now so it's probably just as crappy as an excel😂😂
colonel mustard ·
there are very few non vw cars that i would own..... a hyundi is not one of them
bat69 ·
ian.mezz wrote:we use to go street drag racing back in the 80s at Kooragang island and there was lots of fast veedubs and datos.the V8 boys didn't laugh long😂 😂
Would you believe it still goes on today over there. Gone are the days of big webbers and hollies of a thumping N/A car, replaced with the turbos of the late mod Jap stuff.
ancientbugger ·
This is a funny question when you think about it. I was customising my beetle back in the 70's and going to rodruns all over the UK and most of the runs I went to I'd be the only VW there and I'm talking of a period of around 5 years. People looked at me like I was wierd. You could customise an Escort or Cortina and that was fine, a Mini that was acceptable but a VW? That was plain silly. Beach buggies were also looked upon as a cheap and easy way of getting a custom car(??!) but I had mates who were into 55/56/57 Chevys (they were older than me) and during a drunken session once I heard that at least one of them wanted a buggy but was more worried about what his mates would think if he bought a VW! BTW jap cars were NEVER seen at any meeting I ever went to then and that was up to about '82.
ancientbugger ·
Following on from Ian Mezzs' comment I went to a meeting of the Mid Kent Roadsters back in about 79 and one of the organisers drove a nearly standard looking VW complete with roofrack but when they started the 1/8th mile dragstrip any car that won he'd challenge for a race. Only one car beat him at the time and that was a Jag engined T-bucket called Desperado, he beat every V8 engined car that raced but would never open his engine lid. I looked underneath and he had a VW engine in it but a year or so after I first see him I found out he had nitrous injection!! And that's back 30 years ago.
MISS VDUB ·
colonel mustard wrote:there are very few non vw cars that i would own..... a hyundi is not one of them
Sweet, get back to us when you have a VW on the road👍
1500S ·
ryana89 wrote:An interesting thought but think this, a VW from the 60's/70's can do infinite Kilometres and still keep going, i think youd be lucky to get 200,000km out of a Hyundai or anything of similar quality. Kinda hard to compare them when VW's are in a completly (higher) different league. Also VW's can be made to handle better and perform better, ricers today are only good for ugly body kits and farty exhaust notes🙅
Ryan😀
You mustn't have been around in the 60s and 70s!! If you got to 160,000 km (100,000 miles) on the clock the average VW engine was stuffed along with the rusted body if it was built here and about 5 years old. In the case of the earlier Type 3s, at around 30,000 miles you could expect to be looking at a valve problem as well. Those early heads on both 1200 and 1500 engines continually popped original rocker studs and you were lucky to get home at times.
No! I've never owned any of the Jap etc rice burners but up around 300 to 400,000 km seems quite common with few problems. Not to say there aren't ones which turn out crapp in much lower use but in general, we must admit that most cars have come a long way since the 60s in both reliability and comfort. I've rowed enough VWs from Sydney to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide on the long runs and all over NSW from mid 60s to 1984 so I have some idea what they are like to drive and look after.
Sometimes we do have to look outside the paddock!! Aircooled VWs are great toys to play with but don't ask me to back up an argument that they are better than most modern day units. 🙅
DH
t_tuffnut ·
Interesting thread. I wish I could compare my previous vehicles to my dub, but seeing that it is on blocks in the garage I cant compare them completely.
What I can do it compare it on longevity to some degree.
Over the years I've had a 1990 ford corsair (Nissan Pintara) which needed repairs weekly with 200K on the clock. I've had a 1994 Falcon which needed 2 new computers within the space of a year. I then bought a 2005 ford focus which, at 4 years old with 90K on the clock, needed a complete transmission rebuild, new shock absorbers, new fuel pump and a new radiator.
Then I bought a 1963 beetle, which had sat for 4 years in a car lot, which turned over on the 2nd turn of the key with a new battery in it. Admittedly the brakes are stuffed and it is leaking oil, but I know that the last 3 cars would not be able to do such a thing after sitting for 4 years.
As far as image goes, wouldn't they have been seen more as quirky that sexy sports machines? Quirky with balls once hotted up type of thing? Now they have a classic feel, but for various stories and articles, as well as the advertising, it looks like they were aiming for an off beat persona for them.
type3vw ·
very interesting topic. there is a guy near me who has
turbo charged his excel, all up he spent close to $10,000 on running gear, and it has done a 13sec pass with lots
of wheel spin. the car looks very stockish. no spoilers or
wing, just a set of fatter tyres. true sleeper style.
i would say that an excel owner is looked upon as (why
would you bother) but 10 to 15 years ago i was looked
upon the same in my vw bug. then after tinkering with
them alot and building an 1835 and running a 13 sec pass
my friends were like far out they do go. but back to the
ricers. if a few people hotted up the engine or took a
2 litre from an elantra and put it in an excel and hotted
them up, a craze for hotting up hyundai's could just
happen. parts are cheap there is lots of them available
it be the next best craze for young guys wanting to hot
up cars. you just never know.
1500S ·
Mick058 wrote:i think its fair to say that im a 'new generation' dubber, but i wonder, as i see some of the 'ricers' around town and at times laugh at them and think 'why would you bother' - would this have been the reaction of those 'hotting up' their Veedubs in the 70s and 80s.
Are the Excels of today, with their body kits, spoilers and added weight with standard engines, equivalent to the veedubs of the 70s and 80s.
In what light were they seen?
I assume the V8 boys would have laughed at the humble Veedub the same way they still do now at any 4 cylinder.
keen to hear some thoughts.
Mick, that was the case even in the 60s!! I spent years of my VWs being referred to as "Ghasping jam cans" and to the general public who drove Holdens and Fords of the day and many other more powerfull 4 cylinder cars, they were seen as hold-ups on the road at every slight hill especially the transporter range. Remember there were still plenty of 36 HP engines around as well as the 1200 intermediates in the transporters so it didn't take much to have a snail overtake them. It wasn't until the 1500 engines came on the scene that all VWs could zip along a bit quicker.
By then, the novelty of the funny shaped aircooled car from the 50s was wearing off as the Dato Bluebirds and Mitzu whatever Colts etc started to come on the market in the mid 60s. In many cases, us diehards kept the Aircooled engine VWs alive into the late 70s but then as families grew, reality set in and the larger, dare I say, Holdens, Fords, Cryslers and Leyland P38s did seem to have a place in many of the VW owners lives.
DH
donn ·
Leyland P38s did seem to have a place in many of the VW owners lives.
DH
So would you need 2 of those if you wanted a P76?😂
greasykitchen ·
Well Hyundais etc may well be reliable and cheap to run, but they're boring compared to old VWs, and that's probably what makes them good daily drivers.
1500S ·
donn wrote:
Leyland P38s did seem to have a place in many of the VW owners lives.
DH
So would you need 2 of those if you wanted a P76?😂
👍
DH
spdterence ·
I still like Mick's original question though.
How did the original VW boys's get treated generally? I imagine that that the knuckle dragging V8 boys of the 60's 70's would have considered the quirky little 'Hitlers Revenge' in a unique sort of way.
After all, back then plenty of people were still pretty vocal about anything "gerry built" as they used to say - the emotional wounds of WW2 were still alive and well.
Would be interested to see some more discussion on this thread.