Similar story with me, but the bus was still somewhere on the high seas between Australia and England. We hired one to tour Scotland on our honeymoon, which thankfully confirmed that we loved the experience. We both blame each other for the purchase, but it was my redundancy money that paid for her.
This may be a rather long story! It all started some time in the mid 50's when my great aunt Vera and uncle Pat decided to by a Beetle (would've been an oval) from the new dealership in central Birmingham. No idea why they chose a VW, back then there was still a lot of anti German sentiment and in fact pretty much any non British car would've been a novelty. Anyway, from that time until my aunt's death about 10 years ago she drove nothing but VW's, excepting an NSU Printz in the mid 60's with which they embarked on an ambitious tour of Europe, down to the Italian Lakes, taking my dad and his brother on a childhood holiday of a lifetime. My aunt's taste in cars clearly rubbed of on my dad who bought his first Beetle, an early ‘60s model in around 1971. One of my earliest memories at 3 years of age is of me playing in the back yard, waiting for the distinctive sound of my dad's Beetle turning into the street announcing his return home from work. Like most young families in the early 1970's, we were really quite poor, but my aunt (by now a widow) was fairly well off and was in the habit of treating herself to a new car every 4 or 5 years. I clearly remember, as a 4 year old in late 1974, visiting my aunt up in Birmingham and looking around the big VW dealership at the new models for sale. She chose a brand new, metallic gold Golf N (registered in Jan 1975, making it one of the first mk1's - which didn’t come to the UK until Oct ‘74). But it was the 1302/1303 'Super Beetles' which stuck in my mind, seeing those great big round 'elephant's foot' rear lights up close (would've been at my head height) and the bright 1970's paint colours really imprinted on my memory. So my aunt got a new Golf and my dad went on to get her hand-me-down 1966 Beetle, a 1500 in savanna beig. That was a special car for me and the one I remember being thrown about on the back seat one night in June 1977, when my mum went into labour with my youngest brother and dad rushing us all (drove it like he'd stole it) to the maternity hospital! A year or 2 later we were at a family wedding, we all got to the little country church only to realize the best man had left the ring at my grandparents house 6 miles away! The ceremony was about to start and it was my dad and his 1500 Beetle (with me co-driving) who were nominated as the fastest option for navigating the narrow Leicestershire country lanes and retrieving the ring. Man I loved that car! Dad later went on to have aunt's Golf when she changed to a VW Derby, new out that year in '78; the Golf sadly rusted away before our very eyes and was scrapped before its 11th birthday! In the following years, aunt traded in the Derby for a new mk2 Polo which she kept until she stopped driving about 10 years later. Dad went on to own a mk2 Passat, 2 Mk4 Golfs, Skoda Octavia, Fabia and Yeti (amongst others) whilst his 3 sons followed a similar path. Middle brother’s first car being a 1983 Golf Driver whilst youngest started with a '79 Polo. My own first car was an HC Viva but I soon went on to own a succession of Mk1 Polos, mk1 Scirocco, 3 Audi 80 Sports, Audi Coupe a Seat and various Skodas. Middle bro had a brief affair with a ‘73 Type 3 Fastback before moving on to more modern metal and youngest progressed from Polos on to a nice 1303 before taking ownership of a certain ‘73 Bay in 1996, more of which later. Aged 18, in 1988 I was a student at Sheffield City Polytechnic and by pure chance I found myself in a house share with one of the the biggest, maddest VW nuts I would ever meet. It wasn’t until my path crossed with Terry that I even had any clue that there were such things as Volkswagen owners clubs and even VW car rallies! Terry and several of his family were life long, dyed in the wool, full on, old school VW fanatics, many of whom were active members of the Leicestershire and Warwickshire VW Owners Club right from the early days. And so it was, through these people I was introduced first to VW Stanford Hall and then, the following year (1989) to the Scottish VW Owners Club rally at Doune Motor Museum, near Callendar. I was hooked! Being very much an ‘outdoorsy’ type person at that time I was already well into camping and so, during those early years, Volkswagen show accommodation was a small tent. But already I was starting to notice how much more comfortable and downright cool those VW Campers looked. Parked up and in camp mode within seconds, warm, dry, a proper bed and a fridge for beer, the seed was sown! Some years later, it’s 1996 and little brother announces he’s selling the Beetle and getting a VW Camper. So we drive the 30 miles to Coventry to collect it and suddenly I’m very jealous. He’s picked up a fairly original, 1973 Devon Caravette in pastel white over orient blue, the body’s quite rough and the engine’s got a bad misfire but he’s an apprentice mechanic and for £1000 it had to be worth a punt. A few months later and not to be outdone I found a camper of my own, a 1981 DIY converted T25 with the 1600 aircooled lump. It was tidy and at £1100 I thought it was the very best camper I could afford. Late August that year we drove in convoy up to our first Volksfling, then held at Crail airfield; what a great event 'Crail' was! 2 years passed and things took a turn for the worse for little brother and his ‘73 Bay when his first engine rebuild ended in disaster due to fitting a new camshaft made of cheese! Disillusioned, both with the camper and life in general he decided to sod off to Australia for a year. He needed money and I needed a better bus than an underpowered, home converted Wedge – and so, in March 1998, for £1200 I became the very proud owner of DUX 210L. That was the start of everything!
