JUNE 2009

From CAL:

Hey folks - just wanted to extend an invitation to everyone in the Group and encourage you to join us on Sunday, June 14, here at the Florence airport for the first annual Flag Day celebration - Wings N Wheels. This is hosted jointly by our club Central Coast Military Vehicle Group, the Oregon Coast Military Heritage Museum and Oregon Coast Aviation, the airport FBO. It's going to be a combined car show, static fly in, and military display - and guess what - we need everyone to bring out their military vehicle and display it! In addition to that, our club is in charge of the traffic control and parking for vehicles, so Bill Lambiaso who is heading that up for us can use help there as well. We'll set up our vehicles in conjunction with the museum's display, as well as flag sales from the Veterans Parade Com. of Florence, so we can overlap on booth coverage.

We had nine vehicles at both the Rhody days show and parade, several at the Coos Bay Memorial Day parade and some at Reedsport as well. We met some new folks in Coos Bay and they even have trucks! It would be great to get a dozen or more vehicles here for display - this should be a huge crowd turnout. The event runs from noon on Sunday until 5:00 p.m.; we can start staging as early as 7:30 in the morning, and if you need a place to park/store your rig if you come in the night before, we can help with that as well.

I hope you'll come join us at this event. Please contact me either by return email or call me at 541-999-7965 if you can help us out!

Thanks!

Cal

Cal sent a couple of action pictures from the Coos Parade.

Bill submitted more pictures of his Kubelwagen. Bill also shared some history on his VW interest and about his dad

This vehicle built in MEMORY OF SGT. HARRY T. MORTIMER 2/10/1922 – 3/24/2004 9th USAAF WORLD WAR II VETERAN NORMANDY NORTHERN FRANCE RHINELAND ARDENNES.

1942 VW KUBELWAGEN.
This vehicle is an exact replica of the one my Dad dragged out from a ditch in Belgium in 1944. Later he and his unit got it running and were hoping to send it home in pieces. However, higher ranking officers decided it should go to “Intelligence”.

This is the vehicle that got my Dad interested in VW’s. We weren’t able to buy one until 1955 and then I became the “mechanics apprentice” and I was hooked too.

Dad wasn’t able to buy a vehicle like this until the 70’s when VW brought the Thing to the US. Our family has owned every model of Volkswagen. My collection spans 1942 through 2004 air-cooled vws and water-cooled 1979 military VW Ilbis. Dad owned VW’s until his death in 2004.

My 1943 Willys rebuild is coming along and I’ve been wiring away. All was going good until I started in on the filterette and ended up with two wires that go where? And how? Why are my hands like wieners at the end of baseball mitts? Mike P