My dad bought one "new" in 72. Pic in my profile is me and my bro camping in wales in 74 in our matching hand knitted jumpers. I loved that bus, just the sound of the sliding door, jumping out excitedly to watch it do a "wee" when my mum pulled out the plug after doing the washing up.. my dad used to drive through the night with me and my bro sleeping cross-ways over the engine, rolling back and forth in our sleeping bags .. when my kids were the same age we hired a 78 for a camping trip to cornwall - loved it so bought our own the following year. ironically my dad hated his at the time, said the brakes were rubbish and he sold it after a couple of yrs, that said he was daily driving (our only vehicle) so that may have had something to do with it..
I used to walk to work. I always used to walk past a rusty old o range bay pick up, and used to think it was cool (late 80’s). Few years later, a mate of mine started taking me to raves in them. He had a late bay camper. We went to golddiggers, at Chippenham one Friday. ‘Rave night’. Him and his girlfriend were smashed on magic mushrooms, that he couldn’t drive home, ‘everything was too wild’, as he put it. I only had half a Dennis the Menace, so I was up, but with it. I drive it home, Never driven one before, but took to it like a duck to water! Coming back home through Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, came across a load of roadworks, lights everywhere. The sound of the little twin port, and the air coming in through the front vents, made me felt like I was in a small light aircraft! Loved it! A year later, my other mate bought a 1700 twin slider. He later sold it, and went down the splitty route, and got a job with VW Evolution. I bought his twin slider for £2000! I kept it for 9 years, having rebuilt the engine, new barrels pistons,resprayed it myself, etc. Then the kids came along, and it just sat on the drive for 2 years, silently rotting away. Another of my mates bought it off of me, for a little more than what I paid for it, and off it went, on a trailer. about a month went passed, and I felt gutted that I sold it, so I went on Autotrader, snd found the one I have now, in Mabe burnt house, near Falmouth Cornwall, where my bro in law lives. I rang the guy, and told him to hold it, until the weekend. Drive down and paid the guy £5,400. Gingerly drive it home at 45mph. Took me about 6 hours to get home. ( my 1700 was good for 80mph easily). 2 weeks later, it blew up, so new barrels pistons heads and rings later, got it back on the road. That was 2008. I think it’s only just run in. I love the simplicity of them. So easy to work on, although, I’ve never been a welder, I’m slowly getting into that, too, when the weather gets better, as I only have outside to do it. Goals for this year, are bodywork. Missus keeps going on about selling it, but it ain’t Eatin’ any grass. If I want to go fast, I take one of my motorbikes out.( rebuilt them,too).
..I don’t really know where to start but to cut mystory short I always like them bays the shape, design and of course the sounds..remember drawing them on a pieće of paper when I was a kid..still have a brochure from mid 70s..but beetles were always first in my head..but the first time when Ireally fell in love with t2s was when I drove one for a first time on the trip through the mountains in the middle of polish Winter..damn that was adventure.. I drove the hightop and my friend the sc..they both were kinda hired from our mates..I loved the way it drove and it was great in the snow..with the chains on the wheels we managed to get through the deepest snows..thought I froze to death in it tho..nevertheless when I came back home I started to look for one and even found one, a green deluxe microbus..good price and not far away..there was one issue tho..I lived in a flat and already had a beetle and a daily..no more room in the car park..so has to forget about it for a while..then I think a year or two later we went for a trip up to Sweden in a rather tatty 75 westy..it was overcrowded as there was 4 of us..but loved it to the bits..had to have one..then life got in a way a bit and I decided to change my life (actually no life but work work work only..) and come over to the UK..after a year of being here got a karmann beetle but when my wife got pregnant with twins (we already had a boy) I had to let it go and get a proper big car..but could not live without an aircooled vw so started to look for another convertible bug..then my wife suggested what about a bus?..hmm somehow I completelly forgot about them but it seemed to me to be abit to big for my needs at the time..but friend of mine sent me pics over of a quite nice vw bus..I was tempted..couldn’t decide between a bug and a bay..then my wife suggested we could convert it for a camper and go out camp in it..I thought I bite a bullet and get it back on the road (it was a running project)..before I even finish it I missed a beetle so much I had to have one too..but that is another story..its gone but my bus is a keeper and I love it Wysłane z iPad za pomocą Tapatalk
Its big and red. It makes a silly noise. It has a boxer engine in a cupboard. It’s has eyes and and a penis. I can camp in it. It’s got so much sole. Not many vehicles you can say that about
Loved that story. I’m guessing it was much more adventurous than you have written about, that bit in the polish mountains?
My wife wanted one after watching Lost. I had happy memories of my parents hiring a poptop Comma camper when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I agreed as it was probably safer than suddenly owning some high powered mid life crisis deathtrap. And a VW camper van was useful as a reliable backup vehicle, as well as a way of going camping or turning up to Premier Inn hotels for holiday trips. We did one trip in a 307SW going to Chamonix in the summer just before we bought the bus, which showed the limited storage space in a car. . Early on my wife was happy driving the bus in -5 C up at Sparsholt College when her 307 was off the road for some breakage. It coped with the slippery roads and cold better than the car. Its also as others say the way to get smiles from other people around it as it comes past.
It was the simple air-cooled solution when moving up from simple air-cooled Vespas and Lambrettas once our lot passed our driving tests. We all used to work on our scooters and carried on with old T2's. Also made weekend surf trips to the Gower more comfortable.
I liked the idea of going camping without the faff or getting wet , the usage progressed to somewhere useful for mates to gather at bike races ... Never really been into Volkswagens up to then ( '88) but one came along cheap - 1968 with full Devon interior, awning and t&t for 400 quid - no brainer The next one (current!!) came along accidentally when I sold my house in '93 and was determined to disappear off for an adventure to forrin parts so was just looking at ideas for a better interior layout than the Devon but not a new van .. Came across this one with everything I needed that the Devon tintop didn't have - fridge , pop-top, LHD 5 new tyres and a years ticket .. No brainer and after a bit of too-ing and fro-ing got it for 900 quid and the rest is history as they say . Popped in a VEGE recon (£640 !!) and drove around Europe / Turkey for 2 years . Still got it , as well as being used daily for a while the van is having many adventures but not as far flung these days although since the BIG adventure it's been down to Croatia and had many a European jaunt . There to be used , but not recently... Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
Our parents always took us camping (in tents) every year and on one such holiday I saw a campervan and thought that's cool! Not long after I obtained a Matchbox splitty (which I've still got, minus the opening doors) and went on many imaginary holidays with that! It wasn't until many years later that I test drove one but couldn't afford it . Finally with retirement the dream was fulfilled! PS that's not mine but in about the same condition!
Mine story started with a 72 bug in 1996.... My dad had pointed out a wizard style convertible in a local garage a few years before and I think I fell in love with em from then. When I started my first job in a local hotel one of the guys I worked with had a beetle and the fondness grew until one day I was driving my dads car and some little oik from the village jumped on the bonnet and dented it. I felt so guilty I decided I had to have my own car and learn not to stop for oiks! Bought Volksworld, found an advert in the back with a local number and then went and got on the road. I did still have the original advert as a cutting until recently... paid about £900 which I still think I owe my dad! That lasted for a few years until it came off the road when I went to uni and has since become a buggy at the hands of my brother. As with anyone’s first car it was the sense of freedom and adventure (and bills) that stick with you all these years later. Once uni finished I still had a hankering for an aircooled car. I still went to VW shows in a tent so stayed in touch with the scene. I couldn’t justify another beetle or a KG as a daily as I needed something reliable for long trips and convinced myself that a second car would have to be practical for bikes and camping... but at much the same time that everyone else was thinking the same! So I saved up and bought my 76 bay when I was in my early 30’s and over the course of the last few years it’s been used less (overly safety conscious with the littlun and time is also a bit limited) and the sea air has exposed all of the former bad resto work! But, pandemic aside, time pressures are easing and I’ll have a nice dry space to commence its next resto soon!! Midlife crisis is about to start in earnest! I drive her 100 yards back onto the driveway this weekend, revving the nuts off it with the battery light flashing away and loved it!! Definitely want it back in the road ASAP... maybe even in rat mode!
Like many others I grew up camping. The first photo I have of me is aged 1, mid ‘60s, in a camp cot on the banks of the Rhine, we were there visiting places my Dad did his National service I think. Apparently we went in a mini traveller with a box trailer. My bro was only 3, my sister yet to arrive. After a few years they’d hire a caravan and off we’d go to Wales or Yorkshire. As soon as I could in my early teens I was off camping and youth Hostelling. Mum and Dad got their own caravan in time and I would go up to Yorkshire with them and then head off with a tent. We were friends with various kids in our street and one of my friend’s Dads had a green T2 minibus that we’d be taken out for day trips in once or twice when younger. They used it as a family runabout and the kids learnt to drive in it when they were old enough. I carried on camping with tents every year in the summer through most of my life, usually Yorkshire to the same farm we camped at when I was small. I was a couple of years younger than the son, watched him tickle trout, helped with hay baling and sheep marking, been to cattle markets where I couldn’t understand what the auctioneer was saying and saw the kids grow up and move out, and I’ve seen the farmer grow old and live out his days there and his son take over. I’ve seen his kids grow up too, known two generations of water bailiffs, and spoken to locals walking the paths year after year from the privileged private camping spot which no-one else can camp at. No facilities, just the stream and some trees. I never tire of the place and have always camped there, almost every year since, in a tent or the bus. It’s part of those memories. In the ‘90s I was going on climbing and surfing trips to Swanage, Portland, Devon, Cornwall, Gower and Pembroke, and at the surf spots there were always a variety of Transporters, which made great day vans to change in and warm up with a brew, and stop over in some of the car parks if you behaved yourself, so I started looking at them around 2003. I was torn between the practicality of a T4 that could cruise down at 80 with all mod cons, and a Bay for the charm of it. I’d never been into Beetles, in fact I positively disliked them back then, but the Bay just grew on me. I’d driven Comma vans when I was younger, and liked them in a funny way, but I’d yet to drive a Bay. I liked flat fours too, I’ve had 6 cars with flat fours, water cooled mind. Alfasuds and Subarus. There’s something I love about the feel of them. First Bay I went to see, a Devon I think, was slow, rusty, damp and pretty awful, so walked away from that one thank god. Then I found an unrestored Westy. Solid underneath but a little rust showing near the front steps. It drove quite well, and that bouncy front end reminded me of my old neighbour’s one. It actually broke down on the test drive, just a loose coil wire, fixed at the side of the M3. Funny enough my girlfriend had fallen asleep across the back seat and slept most of the trip, so that was it, I bought it. We did many trips in it, I did some more on my own, often doing something like surfing or cycling, often using it as a day van for the practicality of changing in or sheltering in afterwards. The girlfriend became the wife, then the ex-wife (while it was being restored), but I still have the same bus. I doubt I’ll ever sell it, still use it for long weekends or sometimes a week away, and day trips at weekends. There’s nothing better than a fresh cuppa and clean clothes after a bike ride or a walk. It’s handy for shifting stuff, trips to the tip full of garden waste, helping a friend move, and often I take it out just for fun, I still enjoy it every time I drive it, and it looks better than ever these days, I try to look after it. It’s good times, and driving it brings all those back and adds new ones.
There are some great stories from many of the TLB crowd. Mine is much less interesting so I'll keep it shortish. I like classic cars and cars with character, I was brought up around mildly interesting stuff and there were always a few Beetles and the occasional Bay or Splitty in there with friends and family; my cousin is a cool surf dude in Newquay - he's a bit younger than me - and he had a ratty Beetle at one time. I was more interested in rally and sprint cars, usually ones beyond my means so they were always a bit tired. Wife number 1 didn't really like any of that stuff, so I had more and more outrageous cars until we parted. Princess Christina is a lot more tolerant of bonkers cars as long as she has something she likes as well. She had always wanted a VW camper with the notion of pottering around the countryside with hordes of kids and dogs, but without the hardcore camping element, more like touring from hotel to holiday cottage. Fast forward to late 2019 and we're both retired, one daughter, two grand daughters, two flat coated retrievers, a bit of cash and a sense that we have to do it now as we watch the health of older friends and parents decline rapidly. Looked at quite a few, found one we liked and bought it just after the first lock down, so we've not really used it to its full potential. Here's hoping that we can get out and use it properly soon, and especially looking forward to turning up at Techenders
..great time trust me and one of the best bit of it was, that I was paid for it..for driving an old bay..can you imagine that Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ditto. As a kid went camping with the family, Scouts and then as part of trips away both climbing and then mountain biking. I'd heard these buses were slow, but we had shorted the range of our trips so that didn't seem a problem. My wife was keen on them, clearly for the looks as she doesn't like sleeping in it so it gets used as a second vehicle, excelling at trips to the tip and builders merchants or to haul gear down to the boat etc.
I used to sit in my Vauxhall Nova SR at Fistral Beach, wanting a cuppa, needing a pee (when I wasn't in the water in my wetsuit ) I saw loads of vans,not just VWs that surfers were using and regardless of their condition they were cooooool A couple of years later, and a baby, where a lowered 2 seater wasn't very pracitical. I had a Mk3 Cavalier for a few months that got written off outside the house and there was a decent payout from the insurance so I got thinking. I almost bought a Transit back then in 1999, like this But my research told me parts (especially body panels) were hard to source, so a 72 tin top VW it was.
We hired one for our wedding car in Nov 2019, went away for 5 days for a mini honeymoon and loved it. When handing it back to the hire company, he asked how we got on, and when we responded saying we loved it, he said he had a couple for sale. We ended up with our 1975 Mexican bus and a nice big bank loan! No frills, just a solid body and a rock and roll bed, but we absolutely love it! I had never camped in one before, but my Wife used to go away with her Grandad in a T25. When she saw the colour of the one we bought it was a done deal, you can see why!
