Ace Cafe Air-cooled Night.

On the 3rd Tuesday of each month the world famous Ace Cafe, London hold an air cooled night and as I haven't been to this event since October last year, mainly due to the great British weather being so bad, I decided to go. I knew my mate Stuart who normally goes with me would not go as he was still designing and making a home grown turbo system for his '71 bay, but his son Tim said he fancied going... so off we set.

 

Tim and I made good time getting to north
west London and arrived quite early. At least
it was still light enough to take some good
photos.

The first vehicle I saw as I drove into the Ace
car park was my mate Mark's lovely T5. Mark
is from Dunstable Dubbers VW club

Mark's Super clean T5 with my bay in the
background. Being such a lovely bright green
colour, Mark's ride is kind of hard to miss.

T25 lowered crew cab pick up looked sweet.
I reckon this would look even better with a
canvas top to cover the pick up bed.

Another member of Dunstable Dubbers was
my mate Darren, who was celebrating his
birthday with a trip to the Ace with his fellow
club members.

Nice windscreen sticker on Darren's
bay window.

Another sticker on Darren's fuel filler cap...
I can see a theme here.

This freshly painted early bay looked good.

Another blue bay, but this time it's a late bay
with a pop top.

Satin black cars always appeal to me, reminds
me of my old hot rod days. This bug was
lowered, had nerf bars and painted in satin
black and looked cool.

This turquoise beetle has been a regular on
my blog for some time now, the owner attends
a lot of the shows I attend.

Nice and low, and a lovely colour.

This very rat looking bug is a regular at the
Ace Cafe. It has rust on most panels and a
narrowed front beam and sits real low..
but doesn't it look good.

From the front you can see how low it really
is, loving the rusty roof rack and the rusty
spot lights.

The phrase on the beetle number plate made
me smile.

Fresh from exhibiting his '66 Beetle at the
Volksworld show, my mate Tom brought his
bug up to the Ace. Nice to see you mate...
maybe see you at our club meet sometime?

This really is a lovely looking beetle from every
angle. Tom is a member of the Wolfsberg
Weed Huggers VW Club.

Nice photo of Tom's beetle showing off the
classic lines and lovely deep gloss paint of his
early bug.

This lovely early bug used to belong to a friend
of mine, Zoe, who with her partner Spike run
the House of Dub. These are the guy's I bought
my bay window from so if your looking for a
solid imported bay window, give them a call.
http://www.houseofdub.co.uk/Welcome.html

Maybe work in progress...but it doesn't matter
it's just nice to see another air-cooled VW on
the road.

Another early bug, this time in what looked
like original paint with roof rack filled with
accessories.

Love how low this was, and the camber of the
rear wheels.

Early '70'S bug sporting a chequered
bra and big spot lights.

A late bay, riding at just below stock height
with a two tone paint job and a pop top.

Very clean split screen in a off white colour,
very nice.

I hadn't seen this beetle before. Sitting really
low and with pastel blue paint.

The bonnet had an un-usual design so I took
a closer look. It looked as though the owner
had somehow rippled the inner sections and
then painted the 2 sections in various colours,
then rubbed down the sections to varying
degrees to reveal different coloured high and
low spots.   

You can see the varying high and low spots
better in this photo... along with a script the
owner has somehow created. Un-usual, yes,
but kind of cool.

Another stock height late bay, very clean.

Yes it was air-cooled night, but you can't turn
away water cooled VW's can you?

Stock height late bay, this was very straight
and very clean.

Another member of Dunstable Dubbers was
Carlo in his retro T25.

Bright orange and white early bay. Again very
clean.

Lovely green paint and cream coloured steel
wheels on this beetle looked just about right. 

A very clean bronze coloured rag top bug.

A dark blue T5 with tinted windows and
custom wheels. Very nice.

My bay parked up enjoying the spring evening.

My bay at the Ace Cafe, London.

A nice looking bug parked up next to me later
in the evening.

The first of 3 beetles I hadn't seen before was
this lovely gold, race themed beetle.

Although I didn't find out much about this
bug, it did look nice.

A window sticker in the back of a bay window
 

The 2nd beetle I hadn't seen before was this
blue beetle, it was advertising the 'Apex
Festival'.

 

Love those wheels.. not sure what they are
but they suit this bug.

The 3rd beetle I hadn't sen before was this
white one. It had so many decals I wasn't
sure if it was advertising something or not.

Ah, now this is better, a rat looking stock
beetle.

The local kids on their twist and go scooters
were on hand to give us Vee Dubbers an
impromptu show of their skills.

 

The 4 scooters spent well over an hour pulling
wheelies as they rode past the Ace.

As I mentioned there were 4 kids on scooters
providing the entertainment, but the other 3
were going past so quick it was hard to get a
good photo, this guy was pulling really slow
wheelies... which are much harder to do.

He would virtually come to a standstill, resting
on his number plate before accelerating off.

They were wheeling past this monster Chevy
truck. It was that big I couldn't even look in the
windows!

Massive pick up bed, was the size of a normal
hatchback car

Twin rear wheels and massive bore exhaust.


That was the April VW meet at the Ace Cafe,
After a long cold winter it was nice to get
along to a VW meet at last. Yes it could
have been a bit warmer, but that will come..
eventually. It was just nice to drive my
bay, and catch up with some old faces and
what better place to do that than the Ace Cafe.