Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i VWT Lifestyle

Okay, so by now you will have seen there’s a water-cooled Van in this issue. If you’re still with us, excellent, thank you, now tell us what do you make of it? We haven’t featured a T4 or T5 in Camper&Bus for a number of years - heck there wasn’t even a T6 last time we did, that’s how long ago it was - but they’re something the powers that be want us to include and that’s fine, because when the magazine first started its remit was to cover every generation of VW Transporter - from the first to the very last - and that’s something we did pretty well if you don’t mind us saying. However, with the growing demand for water-cooled Transporters we decided to launch VW-t, a…

CHOP TOP? Hi Camper&Bus, I’m in a bit of a pickle. My wife Sue and I have a lovely Split Screen Camper called Basil. We love him dearly but would really kill for some more headroom as he’s a tin-top. Just being able to stand up to put my trousers on in the morning would be bliss but we’re too attached to ever sell him and literally, don’t know which way to turn. When we were only going away the odd weekend it was fine, but now I’m retired we want to venture further afield and spend more time in Basil. A friend has suggested we fit a pop-top but I’m really unsure about that. What would you suggest? Adrian and Sue, Kidderminster. Hi Adrian and Sue, you’re friend is…

It’s funny how Volkswagens and the VW scene can divert people down a rabbit hole; you get into VW Buses as a means of going away camping and on road trips and before you know it, you have a successful business on your hands. For Roger and Jo Bateman, it was a couple of chance encounters that got them into the VW scene and later to begin a VW wedding hire company. Back in 2013, Roger and Jo went on their usual European touring holiday with a group of friends on their BMW 1200 motorbike, but it was to be their last motorcycling holiday. After hearing how another couple in their riding group had been knocked off their bike and injured, this got them thinking. Roger says: “We were all…

A leisurely two hour drive lay ahead of us from Hessisch Oldendorf and after saying our goodbyes to the guys who were heading back to the UK, we hit the autobahn towards our home for the next few days, the Campingplatz am Allersee in Wolfsburg (www. campingallersee.de). If you are ever planning a road trip to Wolfsburg and you are thinking of camping, then this site must be the one to go for. Situated next the Volkswagen Arena home ground of VFL Wolfsburg (who play in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league) and a stones throw away from the Autostadt, VW HQ and the main train station, it literally is slap bang in Volkswagen exploration territory. At a very reasonable €7,50 per night for a camping…

19 May Avoncroft Air-cooled Avoncroft Museum, Bromsgrove www. avoncroftaircooled. wordpress.com 17 – 19 May Big Bang Santa Pod, Northants www.big-bang.co.uk 24 – 27 May Carry on Dubbin’ Tattenhall, Cheshire www.carryondubbin.com 24 – 26 May Volksfling Biggar Agricultural Showground, Scotland www.volksfling.co.uk 24 – 27 May Wurzle Dubz Bridgwater, Somerset www.wurzledubz.co.uk 26 May Plum Jam Horsham, West Sussex www.plumjam.show 2 June Stonor VW Rally Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire www.abvwc.com 7 – 9 June Alive & V-Dubbin’ Haughley Park, Suffolk www.aliveandvdubbin.co.uk 13 June July 2019 issue of C&B on sale!…

A few months back we were at a VW specialists to watch a new Samba roof clip being grafted onto what was a 13-window Microbus. The talk in the workshop entrusted with this task was that purists, and those lucky enough to own a factory-built 21- or 23-window would scream blue murder at the notion any one would have the audacity to do such a thing. Fake! It’s not real! This sort of thing devalues our Buses, is the sort of stuff we imagined they’d say. Heck, we even know of one supplier of these roof kits who would only sell you one if you owned a genuine Samba to put it on. No fooling! And yet, that’s not how we feel about this sort of thing. If we’re honest…

Why on earth would you want to drag yourself out of bed on a cold and dreary Sunday morning? Not my words, but my girlfriend’s and the answer being - it’s Dubfreeze, the first VW show of the year. To be honest there aren’t many other reasons I can think to drive to a big ol’ hall in Staffordshire, but this is one. Arguably quieter on the visitor front - I can remember the venue being packed out and it being almost impossible to get to the trade stands - there was still more than enough to look at and buy. Including plenty of cars for sale outside. I even spotted my old Ruby Red Ragtop looking in need of some TLC and it sold on the day. Fingers crossed…

We’re not sure if Pick-Ups, either Single or Double Cab, could be viewed as rare, but they are pretty uncommon, especially in great condition. Follow a three-year-old dropside truck these days of any make and we are sure you’d find 95% of them have acquired dents and damage to the dropgates. When you factor in the age of Split and Bay Pick-Ups, you have rust to deal with too. When we bought our original paint ’72 Single Cab from Sweden, the original rear gate had been discarded at some point, later being replaced with a bodged up and horrific rusty mess of a gate. Sure, we could have bought new gates from Gerson or BBT, but we wanted to match the side gates, which were dented but not rotten. There’s…

BUSEYES SCREEN COVERS Give your Bus an angry or happy look whilst keeping the light out and your modesty intact with some of these Buseye Screen Covers from Madmatz. They’ve been around for a while but amazingly are not something we’ve had in our products pages before. They’re available for every generation of Bus, from Split Screen through to T6 and are quick and easy to fit and come with a handy storage bag. They come in a couple of standard colours but you have the option to customise them as well. Prices start at £110 and they also offer a rear cover, too. www.madmatz.co.uk Forst HT leads, £36 Come on, be honest, have you treated your Bus to its Spring service yet? Did you change the HT leads as…

1963 Split Single Cab, Tino Ertel We caught up with Tino Ertel at Busfest in 2018, only half an hour after he’d arrived, making the long drive from his home in Bavaria in his 1963 Type 2 Pick-Up truck. Tino came across his Single Cab in 2008 in Austria, where it had previously been owned by a 92 year old gentleman. He had once used the truck to deliver and sell oil to consumers in Austria. Naturally over the years, there was some leakage of the oil from the fixed tank in the Pick-Up bed, which no doubt helped with the longevity of the bodywork, preserving it from the dreaded tinworm! Indeed, the bodywork is completely original throughout. Tino has completed some sympathetic recommissioning work, which has centered around the…

# projectshed, or #projectsh*tter as it became affectionately known, is a 2007 1.9TDi T5 that our sister magazine VWt bought in 2015 as a project vehicle. The goal from the outset was to show that you can build a daily driver and weekend plaything on a fairly sensible budget, but having covered 217,000 miles when we gave £3,500 for it as a standard builders van, we knew it wouldn’t all be plain sailing… Roughly £7,000 later, including lots of maintenance - clutch and flywheel, driveshafts, CV joints, rear calipers, gearbox, ABS module and pump rebuilds, new central convenience unit, new hybrid turbo and a TT RS front caliper and 340mm Sportline front brake upgrade, it’s knocking on the door of 227,000 miles but is still fun to drive and gets…

Looking at these pictures reminds us just how many fabulous objects of (VW and Porsche built) desire rolled into Sandown Park this March. The VolksWorld Show has always been the number one place to debut a car for the new show season and for many, it’s the first glimpse we’ll see of something if it hasn’t already been leaked all over the internet. The ex-Chis Jory Oval for example. If you’re into air-cooled VWs you won’t need us to tell you the car voted Europe’s Most Beautiful VW at the first Bug Jam is an iconic machine. But did you know it was going to be there in its all its restored and better than ever glory? The first time I ever saw this car in the metal it was…

Steve Johnson opened the doors of Johnson Autoworks back in 2001. It wasn’t until 2007 that Camper&Bus paid our first visit to their second, much larger workshop. We called back fairly soon to see they’d outgrown their old unit and relocated to their current home. Over the last decade we’ve featured too many of their restorations to remember and been ably assisted in our how to and Keeping Your Bus Alive features. In fact, we could fill any number of issues, or a huge coffee table book with their work we’ve covered. When Steve said they’d transformed the draughty old barn next door into a purpose-built showroom to show what they can do, it was time to pop back. Hi Steve, so what’s new at JA? You know us, there’s…