BIll Warner... chairman of the Amelia Island Concours de Elegance.... emailed me yesterday and advised that VWOA (vw of america) is unable to sponsor the event in 2009. I suppose VW is cutting costs like all the other car companies. Bill explained that Sponsorship is down approx. 20% for the event as a whole. This means that the VW coachbuilt class is cancelled for 2009. He will try to get the class sponsored for 2010 still.

Eventually we will get Coachbuilt VW's into Amelia... or Pebble Beach. The momentum is building as the cars have been featured in several smaller level Concours de Elegance events. Dick Christensen's D and S almost won best of show two years ago at Carmel Concours on the Avenue He came in second after a world record winning Corvette race car... our Beeskow was third in our class after Dicks car and a a MB 300sl. Our Beeskow was featured at Quail Lodge last summer... and at Avila Beach Concours last month where we were beaten by a freshly restored 10 million dollar Mercedes 500k Special Roadster! J. Herlin's Wendler and Beutler were also invited to several east coast Concours.... and when his Beeskow Cabriolet is finished it should be a contender too.

It is a lot of fun to bring these cars that nobody has ever seen to large high end car collector events... and then watch everyones expressions when they learn that our rare little cars are VW's! When people learn that they are VWs... the cars get more attention than MB 300SLs... Ferraris... etc. because people always relate to them much more.

Eric

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