Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i VWT Lifestyle

It's been a mad year, and like a lot of folk I guess, I'll be damned pleased to see the back of it. The thing 2020 has demonstrated, though, is just how important our Transporters are to us. In the gloomiest moments they've provided an escape from all the craziness, some hope and a twinkle of light at the end of a tunnel with the promise of endless adventures in 2021. And the attraction of a Camper hasn't gone unnoticed by the population at large. In fact, with people choosing to ditch their usual week on a crammed Spanish beach in favour of holidaying closer to home, now everyone wants one! You can't help but feel a little smug that we were all there first! I took over from James…

“We named her ‘Wendy’ after my mum who would have loved to know that we used some of the money to buy something we would have some adventures in” Nick Toogood, T25 Bus Eight years ago I was driving home from my job in the funeral service when I saw a bright yellow Bus parked on the main road with a ‘for sale’ sign in the window. My mum had not long passed away and had left me some money so I got home and told my girlfriend about the Bus and she reluctantly agreed to go and see it with me. As we neared the van she took one look at it and said, “I am NOT getting in that,” and she wouldn’t even get out of the car…

For some people, the outdoors way of life is embedded in their DNA. Depending on your view of the world, you might even say it’s programmed into every human. We’re just not designed to be cooped up behind walls of brick. That’s why the slogan ‘live the dream’ is so intrinsically linked to camper van ownership and why so many people just like Kevin Jones and Gwen Roberts harbour ambitions to one day make that dream a reality. Well, congratulations, Kevin and Gwen – you did it! Common sense Both work for the NHS in South Wales—Kevin as a now semi-retired Biomedical scientist in pathology and Gwen as an NHS Manager. They both love the outdoor life and even spent three weeks touring the south of France on Kevin’s motorbike…

For the past 25 years, our summers have consisted of non-stop VW events pretty much every every weekend from April through ’til October… until 2020 when Covid changed everything. Missing a year of The VolksWorld Show was a bitter pill to swallow but, as the months rolled on and the summer panned (fizzled?) out, it was clear the postponement of Sandown was just the beginning of a nightmare season for events and gatherings of all kinds. As we write, there’s real hope on the horizon for the 2021 show season and while 2020 was a complete washout in virtually every respect, we can’t help but feel a little grateful that at least we made it to Santa Pod – albeit on just one occasion! The team there did a great…

Last month we showed you how to breathe new life into a tired original Westfalia pop-top; repairing damage and applying fresh paint to make it last another 40 years. This month, it’s time to refit it to the Bus with a new canvas and rubber seals, literally putting the icing on a Bus-shaped cake. Our project ’73 Westy was similar to many import buses, in that the original fabric pop-top canvas had pretty much disintegrated. Fortunately, we still had the original fixings to hold it to the roof. Here we show you what’s involved to fit a new German quality canvas. 01 PREPARE / REMOVE POP-TOP Assuming you didn’t read last month’s how-to, or that your pop-top shell doesn’t need any repairs, we’ll start by removing the roof. Preparation here…

A little enthusiasm goes a heck of a long way. Not just when it comes to seeing a restoration through to completion – that goes without saying – but also when you’re talking to a jaded motoring hack about your vehicle. Believe it or not, there are times it feels like pulling teeth when compiling the info to write these features. Sure, not everyone has the gift of the gab, but if you can’t muster the enthusiasm to wax lyrical about your VW, or the one you’ve just restored for someone else, well it stands to reason that it will make for a dull telephone conversation and feature, doesn’t it? Blood from a stone anyone? Picking peanuts out of pooh? You get the drift. Obviously we’re not about to say…

This wonderful Westfalia is the handiwork of Essex-based petrol head and all round good guy, Norman Gregory. Norm has been VW-mad since ’95 when he picked up his first VW project, a stock Beetle, which he restored, modified and, of course, lowered. That was a 1500 model and the first of a string of Beetles, before Norm eventually found himself in the market for a Camper. This ’78 2.0 US-spec Westy is actually a Berlin Deluxe (SO76/1) model, which was originally imported from the States to the UK by fellow VW hounds, Paul Boosey and ‘Honest Jon’. Paul and Jon were looking to flip this particular vehicle and, as Norm put it, “I was in the right place, at the right time with cash in my back pocket,” hence a…

The Type 25 is an unfortunate beast. For the last decade and then some, we’ve been banging the drum for them and saying how their time has finally come, but in actual fact it would appear to have been and gone. If you blinked you probably missed it. The problem is they’re still just too darn modern for those who want to keep their camping old school but still too quirky (and often rusty) for those who want the ease and performance of a reliable go anywhere, anytime water-cooled Bus. So if it’s a case horses for courses and Splits and Bays for one camp and T5s and T6s for the other, when does this donkey get to fly? Where exactly does that leave the third generation Transporter? We’d argue…

Sometimes I like to get other people to work on my vehicles. I am not being lazy, it’s just that I like the reassurance of having a second set of expert eyes giving everything a good eyeball underneath to make sure I’ve not missed anything. As I was on a UK visit down south at the time, therefore, I booked my 2.5 T5 in to The Southern Motor Group at Cowfold, West Sussex – an authorised VW van sales and service centre – for an oil and filter change. Due to menu servicing and the need to compete with independents, it wasn’t nearly as dear as I imagined, and I was told it would include a free ‘express’ visual check, a free wash and vacuum and they’d be using the…

SAY A VIRTUAL HELLO! Give us a quick heads up on your latest project With Covid-19 we’ve had fewer opportunities to get out and about to say hello and see what you’ve been up to. And to say we’ve missed you all is an understatement. Therefore we’d like to invite you to pull up a virtual chair and have a chat. Tell us what you’re driving, what projects you are currently working on and basically let us in on what you’ve got planned for 2021 on the VW Transporter front. Go nuts and do it today by emailing a picture of you with your van to camperandbus.ed@kelsey.co.uk. We’d also be interested to hear about your experiences of buying a Bus, and any epic stories about the trips you’ve done so…

“Not only was the Bus in great condition and 99% complete, but all of the history was still present” Buying an old VW with a known history is usually a given, especially in the UK. Afterall, it’s rare to buy a car here with no paperwork or an uncertain ownership record. However, in the States things are a bit different. Having been personally importing cars from across the pond for almost 20 years, I’ve got used to ads that say ‘No paperwork’ or ‘Lost title’. If you’re in the know when it comes to exporting cars from the US, then you’re probably well aware that you can’t ship a car out of the country these days without a title. Not that something like this would matter to Gene Balyasny, a…

Hazet today is a thriving German company that produces a huge variety of general and specialist high quality tools. But mention the name to any Volkswagen enthusiast and one particular product will spring immediately to mind – the famous circular tool kits, known as ‘roundboxes’, designed to neatly occupy the centre of a Beetle’s spare wheel. From 1950 through to the late-1960s, Hazet supplied the boxes through Volkswagen franchised dealers. And they looked superb plugging that unsightly gap under the front lid. The history of Hazet stretches back far before Volkswagen, though. It was established in 1868 by 27-year old Hermann Zerver, a blacksmith from Remscheid in Germany. He used the family forge to start making tools, using ‘Hazet’ as a brand name; the made-up word being the German phonetic…

There can hardly be a VW enthusiast who is not familiar with the name Karmann. During a long, car-based relationship with Wolfsburg, the Osnabrück coachbuilding company has produced most of VW’s convertibles, with their beautifully constructed hoods, as well as more specialist models like the Karmann Ghia and Corrado. Less familiar to UK fans, though, will be Karmann’s connections to the motor caravan world, where they used their coachbuilding skills to the full. In the January 1988 issue of VW Motoring we took a close look at the Gipsy, based on (what else?) the VW T25 van. Briefly imported earlier to the UK, this was now being offered once again by well known specialists Bromley Motor Caravans of Belvedere, Kent. Intended for the better-off buyer, the Gipsy offered high quality…