The Bay Window Volkswagen Bus — affectionately (and sometimes not so affectionately) known as the Fat Chick , Late Model , Round Window , or Big Boy — covers the iconic 1968–1979 VW Bus era. It was the successor to the legendary split-window Bus, made famous on TV shows like Eight Is Enough , and while some purists dismissed it at first, others saw its potential and fell in love. In this episode, we look into the culture, history, and revival of these late-model Type 2 buses with Craig Gonzales ...
Aug 15, 2025•1 hr 22 min
If you’re restoring a classic Volkswagen, chances are you’ve thought about the details that make your VW truly authentic – and few details matter more than a properly restored speedometer. Steve Burdett is one of the most interesting craftsmen in the hobby today. With a background in shaping fiberglass and building custom surfboards, Steve has always had a gift for creating things by hand. When the surfboard industry began to slow, he turned his skills toward another passion – vintage vehicles. ...
Aug 08, 2025•57 min
On this episode, Bill and George discuss last several videos that George put out as well as the four shows that Bill went to little bit. Americna Cal-LOOK caravan, DKP reunion & EMPI History Tour with Dena Kirsten. Plus some projects in the work and a little bit of talk about electric AC on a Volkswagen. Another round table for you guys to enjoy. Enjoy. www.letstalkdubs.com www.vwtrendsmagazine.com www.russwulf.com use LTD10 for 10% off your order ICON pistons here https://www.youtube.com/@t...
Jul 25, 2025•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, we dive into the story behind Discipline Child — a wildly custom 1955 Volkswagen Beetle owned by Cali Springer, originally from the Virgin Islands. What began as a simple inquiry about fuel injection turned into a one-of-a-kind build by Alvin Lawrence of Auto Fanatic, also hailing from the islands. This isn’t your typical classic VW Beetle. Discipline Child features a Subaru engine swap, full air suspension, electric air conditioning sourced from a Tesla, and a top-tier custom s...
Jul 18, 2025•50 min
In this episode, we sit down with Rick Wright, owner of The Wright Gearbox, a name synonymous with precision-built transmissions in the off-road and high-performance VW world. Growing up wrenching in his family’s VW shop, Rick turned childhood passion into a powerhouse business dedicated to building and rebuilding transmissions for street, strip, sand, and race. Rick shares his journey in the VW industry , and how years of hands-on experience and customer-first philosophy help him deliver bullet...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 25 min
Being a Volkswagen Bus enthusiast is a challenge—but being a classic VW Bus guy in Canada is a whole different story. With harsh winters, salted roads, and constant snow and ice, early VW Buses are rare survivors in the north. But every now and then, someone gets lucky. In this episode, we sit down with AJ Welsh, a true OG in the Canadian air-cooled VW scene and a proud member of the Four Stack Mafia . AJ shares the incredible story behind his 1967 VW Bus, which became so iconic it was featured ...
Jul 04, 2025•45 min
What does NASA Volkswagens have in common Joe Varga. Known as Carbon Joe on Instagram Joe Vargas spent the last 16 years working on project X 37B with Boeing an unmanned working in Aerospace most of his life gave him a skill set of problem-solving up against just about anything. In the early 2000s of friends brother ask him to make some carbon fiber parts for his friends Drag bug. From then it's been on Joe's first car he still owns to thi this day. And he enjoys driving his super beetle convert...
Jun 27, 2025•2 hr 14 min
Eric Justus grew up in Southern California, the son of a VW enthusiast Bill Justus. Bill was known for putting on some of the VW panic events in the mid 90s. Eric grew up with that as a foundation. Moving onto Street cars he obtained Type 34 ghia he decided he was going to make it a drag car. It was quite infamous in the early days as it was at Carlsbad Raceway quite a bit drag racing and he had that big type three moving pretty quick. After he sold it he took a step back for a little bit to foo...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 38 min
This week is a short podcast while Im out in southern California. The DKP 60th anniversary & Hot VWs 50th Anniversary of the Cal-Look Edition. I was able to check out the the Schley Museum. I give you a very short inrtoduction in to the Schley Brothers hsitory. www.letstalkdubs.com www.vwtrendsmagazine.com www.rosswulf.com use code LTD10 to receive 10% off on all purchase at Ross Wulf ICON pistons HERE...
Jun 13, 2025•20 min
In this episode, I’m joined by Lee Bushaw and Joey Girodano from Workstat Restoration to break down everything that went down during VW Revival Weekend in Southern California. After seeing the buzz all over Facebook, I knew I had to get these guys on the mic to recap the multiple Volkswagen events that made the weekend one for the books. We kick things off with the legendary DKK (Der Kleiner Kampfwagens) Cruise Night on Friday, then dive into the Saturday coin toss: do you hit OCTO Bus Meet in L...
Jun 06, 2025•1 hr 25 min
In the world of classic VW technology, innovation often comes from the enthusiasts—not the factory. That’s exactly the case with Andrig Miller of Andrig’s Air Cooled Technology, who took it upon himself to improve one of the most overlooked components in air-cooled Volkswagen engines: the cooling fan. In this episode of Let’s Talk Dubs, we dive deep into the development of a new **high-efficiency VW cooling fan** engineered for lower drag and increased airflow at low RPM. We cover how Andrig tac...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 56 min
Mike Gleckler hails from Carmichael California. A lifelong VW enthusuest. He first got into Volkswagens at the age of 15. His Instagram handle is @vintage_volkswagens has over 3800 posts and 44.6K followers. Check out his IG for some cool vintage Volkswagne content. On this episode we talk about his bus collection. His 1967 Deluxe Bus and the story behind it. Also his 1954 Barndoor era Single cab pick up. His 1967 HighRoof "Clinomobil". He has an afinnity for Highroofs by the way he ownes 2 of t...
May 23, 2025•1 hr 24 min
Its been a crazy few weeks in the VW scene. The celebration of life for Bob Lacost at the Canyon RV park was disrupted by a shooting. An argument turns into a person with mental health issues, he runs his truck into some people, then gets out of his truck and starts firing off 10 rounds and hits 2 people. We play the news report. The sad passing of VW family, Stanley Ford and we tell you about when the celebration of life will take place. He will be missed. Then the Anaheim Hills Murder suicide ...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Gerald Klaus: From German Roots to High-Performance Innovation Born in Germany and raised in the world of Volkswagens, Gerald Klaus grew up under the influence of his father, Rolf Klaus—a respected VW performance builder and parts manufacturer. With a split-window Beetle in the garage and a legacy of tuning engines for German enthusiasts, Gerald's path was set early. Armed with a degree in metallurgy and hands-on experience in industrial foundries, Gerald combined his technical expertise with hi...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 27 min
This is the story of a guy who just wanted his bug restored. Wayne Callahan bought a 1968 Beetle brand new and had that car still to this day after years of it sitting in storage and he wanted to find a good restoration shop. he talked to a few people and ended up taking it down to Type One Restoration in Tempe Arizona. With his mindset, determined to do his bug back to all original, so he could just cruise it around and enjoy it. Things took a turn when Wayne spent a day at the grand national r...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 8 min
On this episode I am under the weather but I break down for you the big window Beatles from 1958 to 1967. The main differences we start by breaking them down in the three categories 58 to 1961 1962 to 1964 and the third category 1965 to 1967. We discussed the details and differences between these. It's a short one this week but a lot of information. I hope you enjoy it.
Apr 26, 2025•21 min
Nicole Johnson has a lot of Motorsports experience and she's got an excellent YouTube channel called Nicole Johnson's detour. You probably have seen one of the videos her most popular is a 500 horse powered Subaru sleeper Bug. That video, her first one has over 10 million views. Since then she's built a Youtube channel where she seeks out unique cars to feature on her show, her motto is "I wanna drive everything". Last week (if you subscribed her channel parentheses which you should), you would'...
Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 54 min
Jason Lindquist hales out of the northern California area. He's known for preserving and finding low mileage original Volkswagens, that's his passion. For other people he does restorations and preservations for them as well. Several Volkswagens he's built have been displayed throughout other peoples collections. When it comes to getting down to the details, that's where Jason really comes to the table. His attention to detail and understanding of midyear changes at Volkswagen from seats, seam lo...
Apr 11, 2025•1 hr 10 min
One thing I love about the VW world is there's never a dull moment and there's always something new. For example, the Devin this is the first time I've ever seen this car was at a type three rally meet up in front of ISP West that's when I got to meet Reid Kerlin . Reid is the owner of this Devin 295. It's called the Devon 295 because it cost $295 back in the day it was a kit car that was made for multiple different chassis for the ultimate enthusiast that wanted to build their own sports car on...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Buying a car before he could drive was the best thing that could ever happen to a 14-year-old kid. Hopping on his bike and taking a carburetor to the local German mechanic to get some understanding of how to make things work, changed his life. I met John Benton at the EMPI open house last year. He built a 1641 cc motor with 48 IDs and came in there and ripped it wide open to 7000 RPMs and put out some impressive horsepower numbers 160 hp for a 1641 when I interviewed him he came across as your t...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr 37 min
Pedro Sainz is one of the most obsessed type three builders that there is. Starting with his notchback a chance meeting at the first Nona meeting with Lee Hedges as friends they pushed each other to build their cars as original as possible. From that point forward, Peter was on a mission to restore cars, not only did he restore cars, but he also built roof racks Pedro's roof racks as a matter of fact. Some of those popular wood slat roof racks made in southern California in the early 2000s his f...
Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 10 min
This year's One crazy weekend is going to be debuting quite a few 80s cars. 80s tribute cars are back and on this episode. We discussed what it took to build and back then what was the condition you found them in and what level did those people restore them. We also hop in a Time Machine and check prices back then versus now to see what the difference was building cars back in the 80s. It's a fun podcast. www.letstakdubs.com www.vwtrendsmagazine.com www.rosswulf.com wwwhttps://www.germanaire.ca ...
Mar 07, 2025•1 hr 21 min
On this episode, Bill discusses going to the diecast super convention what that experience was like and also being a member of DBK and meeting Bob Lacoste. The majority of this podcast is a remastered version of my original interview with Bob Lacoste from the Compound. Bob was always a super detail oriented guy who had an immense knowledge for everything Volkswagen. He was super hype type three guy and could tell you just about everything about every accessory made for type threes and then some....
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 24 min
David Craig is one of those guys that is behind the scenes most of the time. Originally starting as Volkswagen shop bugs for you in grass Valley California. David went on to partner with people like Rich Kimball on some of the early treasure hunts with him. Together they went through Mexico at old VW shops going through vintage inventory bagging it all up and bringing it back to the states. With a background in the garment industry, he started making T-shirts with cool, logos and sayings like en...
Feb 22, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Sometimes you meet people that have been in the scene so long that the effect that they've had and the cars they've built ripple on for quite a while. That's the case with Walter Jelinek. Walter started the Bug box in 1994 but his story starts before that. As a kid in Germany, seeing a lot of cool Volkswagens and stumbling across his first Vw trans magazine that got him hooked. Then Walter has been known for constantly doing something unique and different from one of the first original patina ca...
Feb 14, 2025•3 hr 12 min
On this episode, Bill and George discussed this summer's show season. The Vw revival what's that all about and is it going to emulate the VW classic weekend. I give my thoughts on the difference between the two and what me from an out-of-towners perspective really enjoyed about the original classic Vw weekend. We also discussed the new VW's magazines some surprises that we've seen in there are things changing in the scene? Hopefully so a little more variety is never a bad thing. Bill takes Zorba...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 9 min
On this weeks episode we discuss some buyers guide topics. Also, the cars that have gone through Barrett Jackson recently and how that's going to affect the current market and future market of particular models specifically the $85,000 notchback. Show updates for this summer, East Coast, West Coast and UK. And what's the deal with Brazilian buses or Brazilian cars in general. We discuss what to expect when you buy a car from Brazil. Why the cars in Brazil are the way that they are. And is there ...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 6 min
This podcast is an amazing story of how someone who is on a different path gets put into a trajectory that changes everything that they do. Simon Kelley's that man, world traveler, living life with a passion to discover things find himself in Thailand one day and then begins to manufacture rubber. It's a long sort of story and you get to hear all the details on this podcast. Our passion Vw hobby ends up, finding opportunities for us to be a part of it in multiple ways. And it just starts with on...
Jan 24, 2025•1 hr 35 min
The 1980's was a time when pop culture influenced the car scene. Nowhere better was this exemplified than the "Eliminator Bug" built by Tony Hunter out of Loganville, Georgia. Imagine being 18 years old and having your car on the cover of a nationally published magazine. Being one of the first guys from the southeast to get the cover of magazine and to have your girlfriend on that cover as well. Talk about living the dream! That is Tony Hunter's VW story. VW magazines have mostly been featuring ...
Jan 18, 2025•52 min
On this weeks episode, let's talk dubs. We do a sit down with Cory Mac and Brian Watts two of the three promoters for the Vegas world finals. We discussed the evolution of this event, how they feel it turned out, and also will there be a Vegas world finals 2025. How the new classes went their experience with the track and also participation from people all over the world. If you love drag racing and Volkswagens, then this is a great podcast to listen to to get a lot of information about Volkswag...
Jan 10, 2025•48 min
