A perfunctory picture essay of Bug Jam (belatedly)

Golfs by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Little bit different... this is what the world looked like to me growing up reading Back Street Heroes in the 80s


Trike by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Trike r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

...aaaaaaaand... back to Beetles


Beetle 57 black by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 57 black bdg by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 68-on blue d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Some serious colours around!


Beetle 69 fuchsia d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 70 pink d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 69 fuchsia r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 70 pink by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

A fellow prole relegated to the day parking field


Beetle 71 blue r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I always try to avoid disrespecting other people's cars but I took this one mostly to remind me how glad I am that I toned down the two-toning on my own car


Beetle 71 blue-white by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Can't stop taking different variations of this same shot on different cars!


Beetle 71 green wh d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 71 pale green by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

now, that's a lot of speakers!


Beetle 71 purple speakers by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Funny how many cars here hold a dark and mysterious past... if you look up the license tag information on this lovely turquoisey-blue '72 the DVLA will tell you it is, in fact, orange. Shhhh, we won't tell


Beetle 72 turquoise by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 72 turquoise r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

....and the DVLA reckon this one's purple. Hmmm


Beetle 72 white-black r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Cracking interior, mind


Beetle 72 white-black int by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 72 white by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Porsche wheels, louvres and impossibly tidy engine bay. Mmmmm


Beetle 74-on grey by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 74-on grey bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 76 black by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Very odd wheel bolt strategy.


Beetle 75 red d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 75 red by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

As always, there are a few cars that really stand out even in a show'n'shine field. For me, this was definitely one of them;


Beetle 72 rod by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 72 rod engine by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 72 rod int by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle 72 rod d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Yeah, you're right. Time for some vans. So bright it was almost impossible to focus on;


Splittie 61 blue&white by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 66 blue graffiti by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 67 orange&white by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 67 orange&white d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie pickup 62 by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie van cyclops 60 orange by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie van Rusty by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


T25 Crewcab 90 camo by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


...so, what it it with VW shows and random Star Wars characters wandering around, then?


Random Star Warsness by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Beetle peach drag r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle peach drag d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle oval beige drag by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle oval beige d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle oval beige drag r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle oval beige drag bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle red drag Bad Influence by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle red drag Bad Influence bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Anyhoo, VWs were not the only drag things in the paddock. There were unexpected doorslammers of various flavours


Bel Air 56 Post r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Bel Air 56 Post life support by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Bel Air 57 clip by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Normally we have a good game of quizzing each other about our car factoid knowledge, and one that Ada always falls for is "what year BelAir is it?" Of course, everyone knows what a '57 looks like but in case one's got it's clothes off, it helpfully has the year pressed into the flitches


Bel Air 57 bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Bel Air 57 d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

It's not an Imp, baby.


Sunbeam Stiletto 68 white s by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

It's a Stilletto


Sunbeam Stiletto 68 white bdg by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Sunbeam Stiletto 68 white d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Sunbeam Stiletto 68 white by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

There were a couple of proper fuel Funny Cars doing demos too. One of them seemed to have suffered a very terminal and horribly expensive failure. The results of it made compelling viewing though.... like watching a car crash


Funny car piston broke by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Funny car shrapnel by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

anyone with any degree of mechanical sensitivity can't help but feel the PAIN looking at these, I reckon


Funny car crank by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Horrible. And speaking of demos... and things going horribly wrong... Firestorm was trying to warm up the already rather hot crowd


Firestorm prep by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

... which went quite well up until it staged, spooled, coughed out a huge flaming fart and trundled sadly to the side wall in silence. Hope it's nothing too expensive


Firestorm launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

In terms of big fire, li'l Willy trumped that nasty old Mustang anyway


Oklahoma Willy fire by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

...although it makes a great spectacle and a good amount of noise, the ETs are slightly out of kilter with the sense of theatre. Ada used to run similar times in his street RX-7. But then, it admittedly didn't have rockets


Oklahoma Willy run by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Tell you what though, the fit and finish puts many show cars to shame. Very impressive


Oklahoma Willy by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Oklahoma Willy d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Oklahoma Willy r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Oklahoma Willy engines by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Just time for some more shiney cars before aback to the strip... the T-topped and very 80s Ghia on the Cool Flo stand area held the attention. But was parked too close to the barriers to get any decent photos of


Karmann Ghia blue T-bar d by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Few others about, which is a shame. Do so love a Ghia


Karmann Ghia 66 red r by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Karmann Ghia 66 red bdg by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Karmann Ghia 66 greengold by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Karmann Ghia 66 greengold bay by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Karmann Ghia 66 greengold int by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

....and a bonus extra Golf lump on bike carbs that didn't really fit in any other post


Golf bike carbs by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Right, enough shiny. Want to see a scabby bus pulling wheelies? 'course you do


Early Bay drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

While we were sat there they organisers staged a gimmick of putting VW street cars against Pro, which made for some interesting racing. Although not usually a fan of bracket racing myself, it did make for some amusing match-ups. I just would prefer to see a race car against car, fast as possible rather than trying to catch something that left 12 seconds ago or slowing right down at the line so as not to break out. Wanna see racing, not maths :lol:


Caddy stage by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Golf drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Karmann Ghia drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Fastback drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Scirocco drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Golf mkII drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle black drag broke by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle blue drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle purple drag by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle silver stage by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle silver launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

This one nearly made it out of shot before I got the shutter open... not easy focussing, waiting on pre-stage with one eye in the viewfinder and the other trying to spot when the light goes green cos trying to match some of these professional snake-catcher's reflexes means you're gonna miss the shot often as not

Beetle lgt blue drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Beetle black drag launch by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

And that's pretty much all I've got. Except, as my old granny used to say, always finish on a song. But the song that's playing is Arbouretum's White Bird and that's just too grimy for such a sunny day so I'll have to finish on a high instead.

As I said, in any gathering even of exceptional cars there are always some that stand right out, raise themselves above even the extraordinary through sheer hard work, vision and attention to detail. It's even more pleasant when they turn out to be the opposite of what you'd expect. For eg, my hatred of Scene roofrack dressing is legendary... I'm often prone to a rant about contrived old tat artfully arranged to tick all the "yo, bro" boxes. So when Ninja Mark insisted I should check out a certain split bus I was certain he was on a wind-up.

I couldn't have been more wrong


Splittie 65 Steampunk by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

What a genuine work of art. Whoever put this much work and thought into this van deserves commemoration in every respect. And possibly sectioning.

Every single part was brilliantly thought out, perfectly themed and intelligently arranged. And despite the fact it was aboslutely crammed, it somehow never became too much


Splittie 65 Steampunk int 1 by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

I just love it... it's like a part of a Victorian industrial art revolution that never happened and you can well picture H.G. Wells sitting down to shoot up some serious pharmeceuticals with Sherlock Holmes before picking up his be-cogged blunderbus and going off to bally well smite the Cthulhian invaders and possibly Martians, what! Damned Many-angled Ones will never know what hit 'em


Splittie 65 Steampunk boots by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk blunderbus by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk bdgs by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk doorpanel by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk rat by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk screen by Nick Liassides, on Flickr


Splittie 65 Steampunk int 2 by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

Awesome. Incredible. Humbling.


Splittie 65 Steampunk birdcage by Nick Liassides, on Flickr

That's it, I've finished. You can go now

That Steampunk bus is amazing!

Thanks for the pics.

Interesting show. 911ish appears to be a 1970 VW-based car (Covin replica, perhaps), if it's registration happens to be TKX 723J - with a 4-pot banger out back, it certainly isn't a 911!

I’ve just read this all, got to the end and realised I’d read it before on another forum lol
Still great though.

Adam

Nice write up and pics as always

I've only been to bug jam once and it was a rainy Sunday and it just looked like any other VW show
But I know a guy who goes most years and he tells me if your going to go you must go for the whole weekend
It's a mellow chilled out weekender with a really good night life so he tells me

Exactly this. Went to my first one in 1995, raced there from '99 to '05, spectated in '06 then did a one day in '07 or '08. Not been back since.
For me it changed when the "entertainment" got moved over from animal camping to pit side and we had to spend all night stopping drunks and druggies from climbing over our trailers and race cars, and even having bbq's on the track!
I do like to see pictures tho!