BHS teacher’s Bug to undergo re-transformation

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Last Sunday offered the perfect weather for a car show, much to the delight of the members of the Golden Gate Chapter of the Vintage Volkswagen Club of America, who staged their 28th annual spring meet in Kelley Park, San Jose.

Among the many Beetles, buses, single- and dual-cab pickups sat one Bug that would be recognized by many auto shop students of Benicia High School. It belongs to shop teacher Gene Cirese.

Cirese, a 25-year veteran of the Benicia teaching ranks, found his 1956 oval-window Bug in 1974, sitting in a wrecking yard. It was in need of a lot of work, he said, and he dedicated countless man-hours to the task over the next six years.

“It was smashed, and a lot of parts were missing,” he said.

In the late 1970s, the “California” — or “Cal” — look was popular on VW Bugs. This meant a lowered stance, slightly fatter fenders and wider wheels.

“In that era, everybody went to a new look,” Cirese said. “It was called the ‘Cal Look’ when they started to modify the Bugs. … So I kinda went with that theme back in ’80 or so.”

Now, after years sporting the “Cal Look,” Cirese has given himself a new task: converting the car back to its original design.

It will be a big job. But he’s got one thing going for him.

“What is fortunate is, most of the (original parts) I kept,” he said.

He also will have help. Cirese’s two sons, Evan, 26, and Collin, 24, both Benicia High graduates, are pitching in.

“Evan started working on cars with me when he was seven years old,” Cirese said. “After (high) school he went to UTI (Universal Technical Institute), and then he went through the BMW factory training. He was accepted into the program” and is now a master tech for BMW.

While Collin followed a different path — he’s a “computer person,” Cirese said — the younger son wanted to help restore the VW Bug’s former glory, too.

Perhaps guilt played a part: The car had sat for about 10 years, during which “Collin kind of cannibalized it for his Volkswagen truck,” a 1961 single cab, Cirese said.

“He took all the parts off it to build his truck.”

Two years ago, Cirese’s sons decided to put the Bug back together as a Christmas present to their father.

“The one nice thing about a Bug, they were interchangeable day one to when they stopped making them, basically other than when they came out with a Super Beetle in ’71 which had a different bottom end and a little different front,” Cirese said.

“They still were making the regular Beetle at the same time. They were exactly the same. That’s what was so unique about them.”

At 63, Cirese estimates he’s been working on Bugs for about 50 years. And he’s seen a resurgence of popularity in the vintage Volkswagens over the past decade.

“You’d be surprised how many hundreds are out there that people are getting and rebuilding,” he said. “Probably for the past 10 years it’s been coming on strong.”

One reason: Parts are reasonably easy to find.

Volkswagen stopped importing the Bug to the U.S. in 1975 because of emissions restrictions, but the German automaker only discontinued making the classic style of Bug in Brazil and Mexico about three years ago. “They were still making the Bug up until three years ago. ‘Mexican Bugs,’ they called them,” Cirese said.

As a result, many after-market parts come from south of the border.

“Parts are available anywhere. You can get anything you want, except for some of the vintage stuff,” Cirese said.

Besides a father-and-sons exercise, Gene Cirese likes to use his Bug as an educational tool for classes. “I had it in the other day for the kids to do a thing on checking out engine types. You know, is a V8 a six, what type is it, is it air-cooled, water-cooled, what?

“I brought my Bug up with other cars I had and they had a worksheet on that. They learned a lot.”