Back in the local VW shop

This afternoon I headed over to what is probably one of the few remaining VW retailers in my area: Car Craft in Riverside, CA. Car Craft has been in the VW business now for probably over four decades now. I haven't done much business with them in the past, as I always tried to get my parts from the shop that I used to work for: Unique Supply Inc. of Redlands, CA. Unfortunately Unique as changed hands a few times and is now deceased. The building that housed Unique since the late '60s now appears vacant. I was sad to see it go, but it couldn't survive the changing market and no one seemed to have a vision on how Unique could successfully adapt.

Anyways, sorry for the sideline about Unique. Let's talk about my trip to Car Craft. As I pulled into the parking, I was greeted with a couple of beautiful sights: a nicely restored oval window rag top Bug and a mild custom Super Beetle cabriolet parked in front of the store. It's always a beautiful site to see some nice VWs in front of a shop and inspire the customers to what they can do with their VW.

As I entered the store, I spotted at the counter my former co-worker Brock Jones working the front counter! Brock had started in the VW business when he came to work at Unique back in the mid '90s when I was there. I helped Brock to learn a lot of the parts and we always got along great.

After doing some catching up, we got down to business. I explained to him what I was working on (the Bug and the Imp) and that I needed a few parts. Every part I inquired about Brock was able to supply me. It was a good trip!

The parts list from this run:

• shift boot, quick shift kit, and shifter lockout plate for the stock shifter Ashleah will be working on
• set of 16 lug nuts, washers, and screw studs for my Bug so that I install the Dan Gurney wheels that Erik and I will be polishing up