I try to attend interesting car events in Southern California to promote the T34 to new people that may never have seen one before. It always generates interesting comments like "THIS is a Volkswagen?" and "That's NOT a Karmann Ghia!". So this Sunday I left at 6am for the
Palos Verdes Concours d' Elegance. Palos Verdes is a posh community in Southern California and the Concours was held at the Trump Golf Course overlooking the Pacific Ocean & Catalina Island. By noon the heavy fog layer was gone and the sun came out providing great scenery to a great event. There were 250 cars of all types & years from 1898 Mercedes Benz three-wheeler to 2011 Audi V10 sports cars.
In the Volkswagen class there was a 1952 Beetle Cabriolet, 1952 Panel Bus, 1963 Deluxe Microbus with Puck Camper, a 1972 SuperBeetle, a 1955 Rometsch Cabriolet, a 1969 Beetle Limosine, and FOUR T34s! No T14's, no Notchbacks/Variants, and the confused crowd was amazed that our unknown models were out en-mass!
My Ruby Red Cabriolet replica 1962,
Greg & Kiki Hahs mild custom Light Green 1964 with Electric Sunroof,
Aaron Weiss' mild custom Red/White 1966 M343, and
Paul Kramer's unrestored original Castillian Yellow 45K-mile 1967 M343 made a great full-production series with Coupe, Sunroof, & Cabriolet models on display!
It was great to finally meet Greg & Kiki Hahs and get a chance to see the high-level of restoration work they've done on their 1964. It's got a red-needle 6K rpm tach, electric sunroof, white steering wheel/column, slate-covered vinyl dash pads, & fresh matching two-toned vinyl interior. Kiki drives her T34 to work on Fridays and really loves the T34.
There are very few good drawings done of the T34 and when Scott Perry discovered some MG's drawn by a UK artist he urged me to convince the guy to create a T34 drawing. I sent Paul Bennett the PureT34 site link and asked him if he had ever seen a T34 before. To my surprise he said "No but they sure are nice-looking cars!" and then asked if there was an audience of organized T34 owners that might be interested in buying his drawings. I told him that I'd buy one and that I could help promote them to the 500 active T34 owners worldwide. Two days later Paul sent me these proofs of a T34 Coupe & Cabriolet! He based the drawings on a 1966 M343 (Everett's), Andy Holmes 1965 M344, and Jorg Fischer's 1963 M341. You can now order these drawings in either B&W or hand-colored for 10GBP additional. Visit www.classicmemories.co.uk for ordering information. Paul said he can change the rim style if you include a photo of your rim.
