Innholdsfortegnelse for May i VWT Lifestyle

“It was time for Shaun to put his own twist on it” If you’re into classic cars, it’s fair to say most people would love to own a pristine example of whichever ‘flavour’ vehicle they’re into, but with that comes the stress and hassle of trying to maintain its condition, worrying about it whenever you go out and about. Not everybody sees a classic as that, some people simply see them as another old car / Bus / Camper. Shaun Walton is a 42-year-old who plies his trade in the body shop at his local Honda dealership and lives is from Weston-super-Mare in the West Country. He’s no stranger to VWs, having previously owned a ’59 Split Panel Van and a ’69 Beetle before going all modern with a T5.…

JOBINFO MATERIALS USED Penetrating oil Wire wool Thinners Glass cleaner Silicone spray TOOLS USED Screwdrivers (flat and cross head) Heat gun or hair dryer Scraper Pair of pliers SKILL LEVEL 1 2 3 4 5 TIME TAKEN 6 hours per side COST DIY: £30 for parts and materials Pro: approx. £300-£400 labour + parts There was a time when Bay Window Westfalias were pretty rare in the UK. Hell, you couldn’t even buy a right-hand-drive Westy in the UK until the 1973 model year. Add to this the fact they were pretty expensive from the dealer, especially in comparison with the contemporary Devons and Danburys that were more common on UK roads. However, this has all changed in recent years, due to the huge number of Westfalia Campers being imported…

From the moment Dr. Ferdinand Porsche scribbled an outline for a people’s car, practically every VW fan was destined to forever cast a longing eye toward the lines of the Porsche 911. There’s a fairly well-trodden path between VW and Porsche ownership but, in the case of Simon Mills, it was the other way round. Simon: “I had a 911 when I was 21. It was a 1973 pre-impact bumper model, 2.4 Sportomatic. I had just started roofing and a bloke I worked with had just bought himself a 911 SC. I thought it was pretty nice, but couldn’t afford one so ended up with one of the old ones that nobody wanted. And yes, I do regret ever selling it!” The roofing game got Simon started in life, and…

“Over the 15 years it has been in the custody of the current owner it has only covered around 2,000 miles” There’s no question this 1971 Dormobile D4/6 has lead the life of Riley. It has been cossetted since the day the first owner collected it from the Volkswagen dealership, Jack Frost of Ely in Cambridgeshire and, for the last 15 or so years has had the ideal existence, stored inside and used on very rare occasions, mainly just to keep it in good running order. The longest run it has done in recent times was to Stanford Hall a few years back, which explains why over the 15 years it was been in the custody of the current owner it has only covered around 2,000 miles. Today, the odometer…

New home forCamper&Bus, VolksWorldandVWt Some of you will already know this by now, but we have new owners and a new location. Our new boss is Kelsey Media, who publish a wide range of A classic motoring magazines and run several shows in the classic and performance car market, so are a great fit with what we do. We have already had lots of lively debate about the merits of the air-cooled engine over the old water-cooled Austin four-cylinder unit, and the Transit vs Transporter is a discussion we are very much looking forward to. Maybe we’ll do a group test? Maybe not. After all, we already know which one is best! So it’s nice to be back to our roots and in a motoring-focussed environment, working with a nice…

’75 Kombi Microbus, John Harte Please see our 1975 Kombi Microbus that my father (also called John) and I restored over a period of 12 months. It had a pretty hard life and was driven all over Australia by backpackers before being left in a rural town in New South Wales. This meant the bodywork was virtually rust free as it hadn’t seen much of the coast to be exposed to the sea air. A well-known ‘Kombi hunter’ found it and rescued it, before a friend bought it with the intention of putting it back on the road, but then decided to sell it on to us. It was mostly complete, but we still had to find some parts like seats, which cost a lot and required a 10-hour round…

It seems that, whoever you speak to these days, when it comes to VW Campers, the advice is the same: buy a Westfalia, they’re the best. It’s not just the fact that it was the only real approved conversion available from Volkswagen, particularly in Germany. What sets Westy Campers apart from the rest is their solid build quality and factory feel, which makes even the most well used example still feel like a quality piece of kit. One man that knows more about VW Campers than many is Steve Johnson of Johnson Autoworks’ fame (www. johnsonautoworks.com) who has both owned a lot of them and worked on even more on behalf of customers. Steve: “My own preference would be the Continental [the orange one here being just such an example],…

We’d been looking for an excuse to get away for the weekend in the Camper, and an unexpected visit from some good friends who had emigrated to Australia a few years back gave us just the excuse we were looking for. We decided upon Whitstable on the Kent coast as it wasn’t too long a journey with our children from our Caterham home. After giving the Camper a quick once over, including checking fluid levels and tyre pressures, we packed up and set off. We had chosen Seaview Holiday Park as it is located right on the seafront. There are also static caravans on this site, so a group of our close friends booked one to come down and have a proper knees up! The site is well equipped, with…