Classic Velocity

One of the continually fascinating things about southern California, is that the classic car scene is in evidence every day. You do not have to seek it out by going to a...

Dry air, and a temperate climate, combine to make southern California a vintage vehicle mecca. On a recent trip, after about a year locked down by the Pandemic, the contrast between home...

So there I was, longing for the old days when changing a tire was as simple as slipping out the axle and removing the wheel. The RT is a streamlined beauty, with...

Somehow, the R60 has just been neglected at the back of the garage. Part of the issue is that with the cramped space something has to be in the least accessible locations,...

On a beautiful Saturday morning, appointments room me to an area near the causeway. It was early enough to risk a quick run across and a stop at one of the rest...

These pages generally cover the world of German cars and motorcycles from the postwar period through to the 1970s with occasional forays into the 1980s. However, it is rare to reach into...

Time has been scarce of late. So an afternoon ride was squeezed in amongst errands. I am still chasing the bug that turns the driving lights off. Long turn signal?

A curated selection of vintage German automobiles celebrating the Holidays!

To wrap up 2020, here is a collection of BMW motorcycle winter images, and a video…. Credits include Classic Velocity, Snowbum, Bike Exif, Classic Motorbikes, thearsenale.com, Butler&Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDAZyPidzM0

It started out as a lovely day for a ride with relatively clear skies and a plan to meander in an easterly direction. Somehow, I got lost in thought and by the...

The Covid virus continues to take a horrendous toll on lives and livelihoods, so our sympathies go out to those who have had personal and financial losses. In the midst of this,...

The Smittybilt awning made its way from the Bay Window to the Vanagon, but never got used. Finally one morning after a coffee run, we unfurled it in a park. It is...

  Over the years, this blog has featured German cars with motorcycle underpinnings (see BMW 700 Heart of a bike, body of a car and Zundapp Janus), fully enclosed motorcycles that were...

A nice morning ride to a peaceful lakeside spot….

  Goliath was a subsidiary brand of Bremen-based Borgward (See The Many Faces of Borgward). Although Goliath had produced passenger cars before WWII, it was best known for its three-wheeled delivery vehicles....

The term GS, short for Gelande Strasse, when applied to motorcycles, has become synonymous with large and imposing swiss army knife bikes from BMW. The original BMW GS was 800cc, and they...

62MPH equals 100KPH, which is technically doing the metric ton. It is not very fast these days, but it is not slow either. It happens to be the exact speed that is...

As a people carrier. The bus came with the normal dim door-activated lights. I replaced the bulbs with brighter LED versions, but they are small and not suited to the new purpose....

Originally posted back in 2011, and now updated… Depending on who you believe, the BMW 1500 was simultaneously the father of the performance sedan, the father of the Neue Klasse (New Class)...

The passenger side wing mirror has been a longtime thorn in the …..wait for it…..side. the base block was worn out and my spare was not much better. Then I needed a...

This is the second post about items that should not be needed on a premium motorcycle. In this case, a fender extension. The stock fender stops short of protecting the front of...

Regular readers of the blog will know that it is often the little things that end up consuming copious amounts of time energy and sometimes cost. In this case, the quest to...

Fritz Klager was first and foremost, a motorcycle racer, but in the 1950s, he built engines and gearboxes for himself and for friends. He was in the top ten German riders several...

It only took a single incident. Just off the road in what looked like firm gravel, I put the bike on the sidestand. As I climbed off, the sidestand sunk another inch...

Well the prior post was a false positive! The battery did in fact take a full charge, however it lost all ability to retain it. Well good news is that this was...

I was all set to wire up a simple top case light to the RT, as I had done before to the 2010. The first step was to acquire the Givi light...

There were two items to be tested, so a nice proving run was in order. A couple of hours out to a point on the gulf and back. The tires proved to...

April is obviously crazy diagnostics month. For the 2nd time in a few days, a machine has led me down a trail towards a false positive. I did a tune upon the...

The fuel gauge has never worked in the Vanagon, and I have lived with it. After all, I have had old bikes for years with no fuel gauge, so the odometer was...

As the story goes, driver Karl Kling failed to notice a group of vultures at the side of the road during the 1952 Carrera Pan Americana race. As they dispersed, one crashed...