VW Nationals 2024
2024 VW Nationals
Was für ein Auftritt! (What a show!)
Where to even begin. This year's VW Nationals had a bit of a facelift with the layout, thanks to VP Stewart! Lots more food trucks, but unfortunately less vendors with some key ones away overseas or down with COVID!
Saturday saw the kick off with a cruise organised by Euro Cruisers, from Prospect Homemaker Centre to Wisemans Ferry. We had great support from both air-cooled and water-cooled cars in convoy enroute to the Wisemans Ferry bowling club for lunch. The car park had more than enough space for the 40 odd cars and the weather stayed fine. Again, thankyou Paul for pulling this all together!
I want to express my sincere gratitude to all the volunteers who helped make the Club Veedub Sydney 2024 VW Nationals a huge success. Your dedication and hard work did not go unnoticed, and I am deeply appreciative of your efforts.
Early Sunday it was clear and very cold, as traders, swappers and show cars lined up well before dawn. Most of our volunteers were there early, some even camping there overnight, and soon suited up with fluoro vests and radios. The club shop and office were ready, the entry gates were manned and opened right on 7:30am, and it was up and running!!! We had a huge clear out on old merch, and new styles on offer!
The car show entry gate is usually the bottleneck, but this year we had plenty of volunteers to make things run smoothly. This year we moved the desk to the drivers' side - we should have done that years ago. Clipboards with entry forms and tap-n-go payment were run up the queue, so that most cars had them filled out and paid by the time they reached the entrance. They got their stickers and judging forms, their photos taken, and then directed to their parking areas by more of our volunteers.
The traders and swappers were also in place early, and by 9am the show was looking great. By 10am most of the show cars were in place, no one was waiting to get in, and the gates were closed at 10:30. The showgrounds were packed with cars, traders, swappers and spectators, what a sight!
The show categories were almost the same as last year. The Pleydon trophy was retired (both Ray and Shirley have passed away), while the final category is now the David Birchall Car of the Day, in remembrance of Dave and his 36 years of work organising the VW Nationals. His two sons Michael and Stephen were there to choose the winner and hand over the first David Birchall memorial award.
This year we got 219 cars in the show, plus another half a dozen or so belonging to traders who didn't want to be judged. That's one of the highest totals ever, what a great turnout! And 93 of them were on Historic Registration, which is the most ever. They made up 42% of the entries. There were 157 air-cooled cars in the show, just 2 less than last year, while the number of modern water-cooled VWs dropped from 80 last year to just 61 this year. While 63 is the average over the last eight years, it was a relatively disappointing turnout of modern VW owners this time.
By models, there were 69 Beetles across 6 categories (7 less than last year); 42 Kombis in 5 categories (3 less than last year), and 36 Golfs in 8 categories (13 less than last year).
The most popular show category was again Beetle 68-on Modified, with 16 entries (7 less than last year). Beetle 1958 to 1967 Modified had 15 entries (same as last year), as did the Rat class, while Beetle 1958 to 1967 Standard and Kombi T2 1968 to 1979 Standard both had 13 entries - 4 and 6 less than last year respectively. Kombi T2 1968 to 1979 Modified had 10 entries, one more than last year.
As for the water-coolers, Golf 1 1976 to 1983 had 12 entries, 2 more than last year. Golf 3 1993 to 1997 had 8 entries, 3 more than last year. VW Sedan had 6 entries, the most ever. This was a mixture of 1 Bora, 2 Jettas, 1 Passat, 1 CC and 1 Gol (from Brazil).
Some classes saw huge growth this year. Beetle up to 1957 Standard for example went from 1 in 2022 and 2 in 2023 to 7 this year! I wonder where all those ovals and splits have been hiding?! The Rat class has bounced back, from 5 in 2022 and 10 in 2023 to 15 this year. T3 Transporter 1981 to 1992 went up from 5 last year to 8 this time. VW SUV went up from 1 in 2022 and 2 in 2023 to 5 this year, thanks to the five Tiguans that came along.
Most classes were up or down a little from last year, but generally around their long-term averages. Type 3 Standard went up from 4 to 7 this year, while Type 3 Modified went up from 2 to 3. Back in 2017 it was 7 and 10, so modified Type 3s continue to be less popular than before.
There was only 1 Golf Mk2 this year, down from 5 last year. And for some reason Golf Mk6 2009 to 2012 has dropped from 10 in 2022 to 8 in 2023 and just 1 this year. Golf 7 2013 to 2020 dropped from 11 last year to 6 this year.
We currently have the 'VW Commercial' class to cater for all modern Transporters, Caddys, LTs, Crafters and Amaroks. Over the last five years the entry numbers have been 2,2,0,2,1 (this year it was one solitary T6 Transporter; no Amaroks at all). We did get a suggestion prior to the show to expand this category to Best T4, Best T5 and Best T6. A great idea, but as you can see we just don't get the entry numbers for it to work.
Likewise the other VW marques continue to be a problem. Audi entries over the last 5 years have been 2,2,3,5,1. Porsche entries have been 1,2,0,1,1. Skoda/SEAT entries have been 1,0,0,0,0. This isn't sustainable. Next year we will combine all these makes into one 'VW Family' category.
The car show entrants all got voting sheets, which enabled them to vote on up to 20 different cars of their choice. Altogether some 2,383 votes were cast (on 164 different sheets handed in), far more than the 1,685 cast least year. This shows us that the entrants are really getting into actively voting on the cars in the show - thank you to all who voted this way. Likewise, each spectator entry got a People's Choice coupon which let them choose one vehicle, and 547 of these were handed in. That made 2,930 votes (plus 220 entry forms) for Phil to type into his custom-designed laptop computer spreadsheet. This took all morning and lunchtime, but data entry was complete by around 1:45pm.
In the meantime the boys did a great job marshalling and parking all the show cars, and directing the traders and swappers. Thank you gents! Raymond and his family did a great job in the shop all day, and the new merchandise was very popular, as were Christine’s raffles. Many thanks to our club volunteers for all their work all day.
Once the computer had the trophy winners worked out, Sam our photographer had to match the winners with their specific car photos for the Powerpoint presentation. One or two usually go missing and it then takes a few minutes to find the cars in the show and grab another shot. But everything was worked out and done by 2:20pm.
We could then start the presentation a bit earlier than the 3pm schedule, which everyone welcomed. We don't do 3rd place trophies any more, and only the 10 most popular categories had a 2nd. After a long day we pushed through the presentation as quickly as we could and were done just after 3:10pm. Most people immediately started heading home. We still had another hour's work packing up and making sure the venue was as tidy as we found it.
Only 8 trophies remained unclaimed; the winners had already gone home. They have already been emailed and their trophies will be available at our next meeting on Thursday 20 June at the Strathfield Golf Club.
Mit mehr Wertschätzung, als Worte ausdrücken können, (With more appreciation than words can express,) Lee Daines
Lee Daines
