If I may be so bold, it is actually what is on the outside that is important.  There is a multi-million dollar a year business, of which I whole heartily support, driven to telling all of us that what is important is on the inside (and around) our cars.  Holy hell, can anyone tell me how to spot real wheels versus fake wheels at even 15MPH?!?  Yeah, just don’t post that nonsense at 0MPH online.

What is this incisive hatred we have with all that might, or might not, be seen in all our cars?  It really is just a car, regardless of what that car is.  And, God forbid, it really is just a forum, regardless of what that forum is.

I, for one, think we must face this fear of seeing what is only on the inside head-on and embrace this new found belief that what is on the outside matters.  We must stop nodding.  We must stop waving.  We must stop posting with posture.  And we really need to leave our monitor and get out of our car.  We must meet other people.  And these people should be strangers, and maybe even make us a little uncomfortable and nervous, and maybe should exist a long way from home.

1800 miles, to be exact.

That is how far Breezy flew to come watch a lousy movie on our garage door recently, and I don’t think he flew all this way for anything any of us had on our car or in our car.  In fact, I know he didn’t.  He didn’t fly all this way to see anything other than what was on the outside of everyone’s cars.  Just occurred to me… he would have flown here with no cars to look at.  He already knew that it is what is on the outside that matters.

And it didn’t matter to Vejatabul or 5spd either.  Nor Nannerpus, Chricto, Yellowihss, or our next door neighbors.  Funny, really; over 25 people were here because of what’s outside a car, but only known because of what is inside.  We didn’t have a great time because of what was on the inside.  Instead, we had a family gathering because of what is on the outside.

I think it’s time we stop being a persona and start being a person.  Reach out and shake a hand.  Take a chance.  Pack a gun you’ll never need.  Be someone outside your car and make friends with those inside every car.  Personas might mesh on a forum and they might even mesh at a local car show.  But I don’t think anyone has ever been in a pinch, or needed a hand, and reached out to a persona.  I know I haven’t.

It is really what is inside the person outside their car that counts.

- ‘Stoly’

In 1996, we were one of the first VW-based companies in the UK to get its own website and slowly the business grew more global. Also in 1996, after having a succession of small retail shops, we moved into our first workshop. In this workshop we carried out everything from basic engine servicing to full restos. Working with a very small team, it was still a struggle to make things really work.  Particularly, trying to do full restos with such limited manpower, it really stretched us time wise. Looking back, I think we still had not found the magic formula.

It was shortly after this period that three or four things happened which changed the way the company was run. Matt Balls walked in and offered his services to the company; he was a multi-talented mechanic with the skills & passion to take things in the workshop to another level. He also had a head full of ideas and the ability to convert these ideas into cars that would get us media attention like we had never before witnessed.

We also moved to a much larger and more suitable workshop over this time where we still operate from today. It now has five ramps, a machine shop, a spray booth.  It is modern, clean and very warm in the winter. We are very proud of our workshop and we try to keep it as clean and tidy as possible.

Leading up to this time of change in our business, we had also been asked more and more to supply, service, lower, and maintain an increasing amount of Type 2 Camper Vans, and so over a period of 2-3 years, our main stream of customers became Type 2 owners and our product range and list of services were developed accordingly.

By 2008, we had two very busy sides of the company. T3D, which was still locating, selling, and exporting a large amount of Type 3 parts via www.type3detectives.com and T2D which was quickly becoming one of the most recognised names within the UK VW scene with what we believe is the most well-equipped & staffed Aircooled VW garage in the UK.

Our workshops expanded further in 2010, and in the last year, we have employed more very experienced staff who are helping us further develop our brand.

We now have many pillars to the business: we service & lower literally hundreds of VWs in a year, but also have a very busy on-site trim shop, an in-house machine shop, and offer high-quality fabrication & paint.

Matt Balls is constantly working in our special build area to keep a strong level of outside interest. His current ‘special projects’ are a body dropped 1958 split bus and a one-off VW K70 Wagon.

Our Type 2 parts side of the business designs, manufactures, and sells its own range of high-end lowering and mechanical performance products for Camper vans from 1950-1990. We also prepare & sell rust-free Camper vans, which we import from the USA.

One thing we never grow tired of is being able to offer expert advice over the phone or by email. It’s always a pleasure to get people out of a fix and back on the road again.

We think way, way outside the box, being the very first to do something different is where it’s at for us.

I love the way the air-cooled and water-cooled scenes have started to mesh in recent years. We are getting more and more requests from outside our immediate scene—it has put a fresh slant on things.  Add some T2D flavor to more than just air-cooled VWs. Bring it on!

Matt Balls’ air-cooled Golf (above)

To find out more about us, why not join the 7000+ who follow us on Facebook. You can also log onto www.the-t2d-blog.com or www.type2detectives.com, drop us an email, or pick up the phone to discuss your needs.

-Paul Medhurst

With a hard-slammed water-cooled body on an air-cooled chassis, the air-cooled Golf built by Matt Balls of the Type 2 Detectives mob is an exact symbol of what Panned represents—giving and taking from each scene.  There are no rules. There are no guidelines.

Massive thanks to Paul Medhurst (T2D boss) for momentarily deferring his endless hustle and bustle at T2D to give us an inside look at who they are and what they represent.  Keep changing the game!

If I had to blame someone for being the genesis of the whole addiction, it would have to be my father – he always pushed for me to try to do mechanical things.

My father always apologizes for getting me hooked on this terrible drug. I think he likes to refer to working on cars as a disease, though upon further inspection, one can conclude that he may be on to something. Most of us are fastened to this mess when we are young, and progress into the full-on modified everything stage.

Perhaps it really is some sort of ailment, this whole business of modifying cars. It started with bikes; pull one out of the garbage, find some parts, and slap the thing together. That never seemed like enough – something could always be improved upon – so I’d find a bunch of cooler parts and swap them on only to tear the whole thing apart a week later after deciding the color was awful, or that those cranks looked wrong. It didn’t matter really. I just liked taking it apart and refining the work. Most of the time the improvements were minor and no one but myself noticed. I probably rode at least 10 bikes I built from recycled crap, which is funny when one considers the fact that I had a nice bike that I hardly ever rode – it was complete and I didn’t want to screw with it too much.

As most addictions go, I moved on to motorized things, starting with my go-kart. Yeah, a go-kart, nothing special – the biggest modification there was taking the muffler off and knocking the baffle out of it so the damn thing would be louder. Still, I couldn’t be content and got hold of a mini-bike and tried to make it cooler. I took a bunch of crap off of it only to have my dad re-install it all. I was pissed, but then again, I didn’t buy it.

Back to the drawing board.

Enter the harder drugs, at 13 I was handed the keys to a ’78 Ford F-250 Four Wheel Drive. This was a big lumbering brute of a vehicle, painted Maroon, with a tapered diagonal stripe separating the gray on the bed. I thought it was mean. It was on this truck that I first learned how to drive a manual transmission and discovered the joys of working on outdated junkers. I never did drive that giant thing on the street, but I was hooked on cars at that point. This was a love-affair with a hillbilly truck that wasn’t meant to be.

I played with other cars since then that aren’t really important to the story because I’ve had 10 cars since I’ve been a licensed driver—all were some sort of German car and all of them were modified in some way. I loved taking them apart, too.

I relished taking apart and modifying everything I could; my cars, friend’s cars, and anything else that had four wheels & an engine. I found other individuals that also shared the same interest. It was easy—I went to a vocational high-school, where I was a … wait for it… graphic arts student. I never forgot that passion of working on cars – getting into the garage and making trouble for myself. It’s an addiction, this mechanical nonsense.  We lowered & installed nitrous on a 240sx in my shop and promptly blew the car up three days later on a Friday night. In reality, we didn’t blow it up, but a 150 shot of laughing gas on a car that was originally battered didn’t help its case because the night at the strip pretty much ruined the engine. I’ve lowered most of my friend’s cars at one-point or another, or fixed them last minute on a panicked phone call – something about an overheating situation.

What I have found in this whole addiction is, like many other addictions, there are hordes of junkies. From Muscle-Car guys and Hot-Rodders, to Offroaders and Bikers, we all share the same problem. It’s not just a hobby, for most of us this addiction is a way of life. Explaining it to anyone else who doesn’t partake in the drug typically draws blank stares and confused replies. We are all part of this subculture that is hard for the general driver to understand. We really are a weird band of misfits, taking practical transportation and doing all manners of modification and feeding ‘the addiction’.

Try as you might, there is no explaining this odd addiction and collection of junkies that make up this subculture we’re all a part of.

- Scott Ketterer

Scott’s father (above)

Scott isn’t exaggerating–it was him that lowered my very first car!

If we examine the meaning of the word itself, from its root definition, it becomes a very simple term.  One who hates.  Thus, it had held very profound resonance in the aforementioned civil rights movement during which it was first widely used.  Although ‘hate’ is a very strong word, it was perfectly representative of the lack of acceptance large portions of the general population held for different races and ideals.  Thus, by the classical definition, it is much too potent of a word to be applied to something as benign as a modified car community.  In the relatively tight-knit group that the car community is, there’s little to no need to even apply the term ‘hate’, as it represents a much grander scale of emotion than cannot be captured in something that is essentially a leisure activity.  We disagree, we dislike, and we criticize, but this is not hatred.  Hatred is deep seeded, lying at the very core of one’s value system, not an emotion that fleetingly dissipates within 30 seconds of walking away from a certain car or person that the emotion was supposedly directed to.

In an effort to examine all sides, it can be acknowledged that ‘hater’ has developed a different, more slang oriented meaning in the past two decades.  It is defined by one who resents another’s success just for the sake of being successful.  Indeed, in the small scale of the modified car community, there are those who resent cars or people simply due to their large scale success and acceptance.  This definition is not characterized by actual hatred, but by jealousy and feelings of personal inadequacy.  This does not completely validate the word ‘hater’ en masse, but it can at least be understood that these emotions form the roots of what make up its more modernized definition.

Unfortunately, even the clear confines of this definition only account for a small percentage of use of the word today.  In fact, in a bizarre twist, it is often used to by those attempting to deflect their own feelings of inadequacy, indeed becoming close to the reversal of the previously mentioned meaning.  Often directed at those who criticize rather than give blind approval of something, it has become a word of refuge for those who are unwilling to accept their own flaws or take criticism from others, be it constructive or otherwise.  In a way, its use in the car community can draw comparisons to much more significant historical terms and events.  In the late 1800s in Salem, Massachusetts, those who expressed criticism of the norm were branded a witch and burned at the stake.  In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy branded anyone who criticized the government a communist and had them blacklisted, effectively destroying their place in society at the time.  Indeed, the word ‘hater’ has become almost symbolic of personal feelings of fear of a lack of acceptance.

How can we combat the use of a word that has become so very widespread even in the small scope of our own community?  Perhaps the time has come to dismiss our own ideals of right & wrong and acknowledge our unique and broad differences in opinion.  Anyone building a car for any other purpose than to sit in a garage and be looked at exclusively by themselves is going to be subject to opinions and criticism, and as a whole, we need to be able to receive both of those with more grace and humility.  If someone offers a piece of criticism that stings so much that the need is felt to lash out, perhaps it’s time to be introspective and examine what made the comment burn in such a manner.  On occasion, it will cause the discovery of something that can be legitimately improved upon if one is willing to realize their own imperfections.

Criticism is not always going to be offered in a polite manner, but unfortunately, as they say, that’s life.  Not everyone is going to like the picture you paint, but thus is the risk of creating your vision, be it through a car, a book, or a photograph.  We are a creative community and we will not always agree with each other, but the word hate has far too malicious intent to be thrown around simply due to personal differences.

-’Metal’

A dogmatic homily according to diabolical mastermind ‘Metal’.

Rust is the new black (or chrome). The new models cosmetically & mechanically lack the simplicity of the past. Less is more, and as far as I am concerned, the older hot rod styles are the Bible secrets and styles of today. Push for the old and leave the new spaceships for the tree huggers.

-Frank ‘The Biz’ Bisogno

Frank ‘The Biz’ is a pioneer that has always remained low-key and off the Internet forums, pushing things forward and not giving a damn about approval. That is what this game should be about.

I still love cars just the same though, and stepping back has allowed me to gain a greater perspective than I may have had previously.  Instead of taking one giant bite of the same thing, I take a bunch of smaller, different bites.  I do a fair amount of random website browsing; I’ll find a pic blog and keep clicking through to different sites until I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole – an amazing archive of 1960′s Gasser pics that I need to save (only 123 more pictures!) before I can leave.  (Is that thoroughness or OCD, not sure.)  It can be a lot to take in.  I totally understand why some people can’t keep a car for longer than 6 months.  There are so many great ones out there and so much access online that you sometimes feel compelled to keep moving so you can still hope to cover 10% of your “Must Own” bucket list.

I’ve somehow managed to remain pretty monogamous with my cars.  My first “fun” car was a Mk3 Jetta, which I owned for about 6 years before I decided it was time for a change.  I’ve had my E30 (the Jetta’s replacement) for going on three.  My recipe is a lot different this time around, and that was one of my first lessons with the BMW.  My plans became less complex the more I got to know the car and realized my initial trajectory was trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.  These are the types of things you discover if you’re taking your time with a car.

I still think really low cars look great and wide wheels with stretched tires are cool (in fact I’ve run them on my E30), but it’s not a one size fits all proposition for me anymore.  I have some chunky performance tires mounted on my stock wheels that I run the majority of the time.  The car is a blast to drive and still looks cool to me.  Never thought I’d say THAT.

I think a car that’s been dialed in to devour an autocross course or track day is every bit as cool as one that looks great sitting at a show.  It’s not hard to find support for those two viewpoints all over the internet.  It’s a little harder to find them together in a single place though, and that’s one of the reasons the car scene can feel like a 7th grade school dance at times – boys on one side of the gym, girls on the other.

This is where a site like Panned comes in.  It’s a great opportunity for some cross-fertilization of ideas from a wide spectrum of sources…check out how the other half lives, you know?  We don’t need more outlets ultra-focused on one pinpoint aspect of our cars.  A broader scope is what we need.  Something that will allow for some perspective and a greater understanding of what it is about cars that’s virtually made them a religion for so many people all over the world.

-Ethan

Huge shout to Ethan, owner of 8380 Laboratories, for the stellar Panned logo.  You can visit his website 8380labs.com for standout apparel, merchandise, and tuning products, as well as design services.