Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2015 i VWT Lifestyle

Saturday September 12 Bus Restoration specialists, Johnson Autoworks, are set to bare all at their inaugural summer Open Day and Camp at their Wymeswold HQ. Set in acres of lush, Leicestershire countryside, it’s an opportunity for all customers (or would-be customers) to have a snoop around the shop and see what goes on backstage. There’ll also be a display of finished Buses, current projects, an autojumble, a few tech talks and some other Bus-related stuff. Fortunately, the wet overall competition has been scrapped but, if you have any ideas for ways to (legally) pass the time of day, drop the boys a line with your suggestions to stevetype2@btinternet.com. The plan is for folk to arrive around midday. There’ll be a BBQ and even a few beers on offer, some simple…

Buttercup Bus Make an entrance in a fully restored Bay Window Camper. Equipped with a classic interior and all the mod cons to keep your wellies dry. Based in Croydon, Buttercup Bus is the perfect place for city slickers to pick up a classic VW Campervan and escape the city. www.buttercupbus.com Kamper Hire Offering an array of modern luxury Campers you will have no trouble getting comfortable when you hit the road. Based in Southampton, pick between Californias or smaller Caddy conversions fit for travel in the UK and Europe. www.kamperhire.co.uk Pear Tree Weddings Okay, so you’re not planning on going on holiday, but how about a Camper for your special day? An award-winning company ready to be of service that you know you can rely on. Basil (pictured) is…

’62 SO33 Westfalia, Tim Jones Approximately four and a half years ago, Tim Jones was surfing the ’net, found himself on the Volkszone website, and spotted an SO33 Westfalia for sale in Ohio, USA. After exchanging a good many emails with the vendor (he reckons around 60!), Tim bit the bullet, wired some money and organised the shipping of the Split, initially from Ohio to Baltimore and then on to England. It arrived at Southampton docks around six weeks later and was transported back to Tim’s Northamptonshire home. Back then, it was in reasonably rough condition, but required no welding repairs, so Tim set about a sympathetic restoration, working on a pretty tight budget. He completed most of the work himself, but entrusted the paintwork to John at Old Skool…

Type 2 Detectives (T2D) have long had a reputation for turning out some of Europe’s coolest VWs, so should be no stranger to regular readers of Camper&Bus. As Paul, Mark and the team put it, “We don’t really do stock height,” so it may come as a little bit of a surprise to some of you that the Bay Window Bus gracing these pages came out of the same workshop as their more radical, significantly lower to the ground, custom creations. Mark: “The general trend has definitely moved from slammed Buses to something more useable in the last couple of years, so we decided to put together a mildly dropped Bus with all the right bits to show you can have a really cool looking vehicle without it sitting on…

We first saw Dave Avery’s Bus at Brighton Breeze seven years ago and fell for it. He’d owned it a year then, but was yet to make his mark on it. Dave, from Polegate, East Sussex has been hooked on VWs since he started driving, as he recounted: “My mate’s first car was a white Beetle. We used to go everywhere in it and I loved it. I was really into Beetles until I saw my first Karmann Ghia. I was at a family wedding and my uncle turned up in a convertible one. After seeing that, I had to own one. I bought a ’73 convertible and kept it for many years. I got it to a stage where it looked really good but, in the end, I was…

SHOW INFO When: June 5-6 2015 Where: Odiham, Hampshire, RG29 1JE Cost: £25 per Camper (up to four people) for both Friday and Saturday night Great for: Camping, chilling with friends and family, BBQ, buying parts for your Bus and raising money for charity Next year’s dates: TBC, but hopefully the same date Charity beings at Odiham Every penny JK raises from selling camping plots, the donatations visitors make for the free teas and coffees, food and the collection buckets over the course of the weekend is donated to charity. This year, that totalled an amazing £10,467.88, which has now been donated to Cancer Research UK. Fantastic work everyone!…

WHO IS HANS? Our man Hans is the expert’s expert. He was at Hanover in the glory years. Think of him as a German Uncle Albert, albeit one you want to listen to when he starts talking VWs Often I find myself shaking my head and exclaiming out loud whilst reading car magazines, even at times this one. It is not, as you might well think, the journalistic tone, nor is it Herr Peene’s perversion for patina, it is not even the propensity for the ‘cool children’ to drive preposterously lowered / modified Volkswagens (so you know better than the factory do you?). No, it is some of the tales that unfold in the various road trip features. You know of what I speak. “There I was, driving along and,…

For many people, the T3 – more commonly referred to as the Type 25 in the UK – is the ugly duckling of the VW Van range, passed by in favour of the more shapely earlier models or, more recently for the new generation of VW owners, T4s and T5s. I for one don’t really understand why this is the case. I’ve always had a soft spot for the 1980-1990 genre of Transporter, although they have to look ‘right’ for them to appeal to me. Truth be told, I’ve actually been spending some time recently browsing online to see what Type 25s are out there right now and, I’ll be honest, I’m looking for something along the lines of Daren Healy’s ’86 Caravelle shown here. Daren, an aerospace engineer from…

Every cloud has a silver lining and, if the rocketing price of air-cooled VWs is something of a cloud, then this meticulously restored 1976 twin-slider Devon is a shining example of the silver lining. Plucked, rotting from a Somerset orchard in 2009, this apple was fortunate to fall into the right hands and, with a purchase price of just £800, there was plenty of equity available to complete its restoration. The ‘right hands’ belong to Michael Cassidy and Sophie Radford of Plymouth, Devon. Mike is very much a VAG man. As a self-employed plasterer, his workhorse is a 2008 LWB T5 Sportline Panel Van, whilst at the weekend there’s a choice between a concours ’95 2.6 Audi coupé and a Mk4 Golf VR6 track car. However, it was via a…

WELCOME TO BUSFEST What started as a small event called VANFEST in 1994 at the Malvern Showground UK, has grown to become the world’s LARGEST INTERNATIONAL BUSFESTIVAL event for owners, lovers and enthusiasts of Volkswagen Transporter Vans. Held at the MALVERN SHOWGROUND over a 3 full days in September, with over 8000 vehicles 25000 people attending plus over 300 trade stands the BUSFEST provides absolutely EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you could possibly want to do with VW transporters plus a whole lot more. BUSFEST CAMPING TICKET INFORMATION • ADULT Weekend CAMPING Price is £37.00 Per Person.• The CAMPING UNIT Price will remain at £20 (for a 7m x 7m plot) (2014 prices).• Your camping unit (Camper/Awning/Car/Caravan/tents/ combination) MUST…

JOBINFO TOOLS AND MATERIALS USED Air line / tyre pressure gauge Rags Screwdriver 21mm socket / spanner SKILL LEVEL 1 2 3 4 5 TIME TAKEN 4-6 hours COST DIY: £0, if nothing needs doing Pro : approx. £150 parts and labour With the summer here and the possibility of road trips in your old VW, it’s time to give your beloved Bus a check over. Whether you plan to drive your VW on any long distance trips or not, it would still be wise to follow these steps to make sure you don’t end up stranded on the hard shoulder on the way to somewhere exciting. With the summer comes hotter running temperatures for your engine, and a hotter road surface that can play havoc with old tyres. If…