Saw last weekend on a campsite in Leicestershire a 53 reg (ie brand new) Type 2 VW camper van. The air cooled engine sounded brand new. I thought they had been out of production since the late 70's or has a company started making them again? (Didn't get a chance to speak to the owner.)
If they are being made again a whole new generation will experience the abysmal hill climbing ability, noise and dodgy handling that I endured in the 70's in my Uncles 1300 cc one.
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As far as i know still made in Brazil and imported to UK by a company in Bristol.Built LHD but easy to convert to RHD.
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the vans were made in either Mexico or Brazil. I dont know if they ceased production when they stopped making beetles a few weeks ago. The camper conversion was / is done by Danbury who are one of the older UK camper converters. the website address is below
www.beetles-uk.com/danbury.html
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The Family Fodder had one of these in the seventies as well, brown, F reg ['69], 1600cc I thought, but could have been 1300 - a Devon conversion IIRC.
What a brilliant idea, truly a Multi-Purpose Vehicle.
OK so with a Zafira [or whatever] you can seat 7 - big deal, our family of 5 slept [in beds & bunks], eat [at the dinner table] and cooked [fold down gas rings behind passenger seat] in ours and I got more for it when in sold it in 1981 than I'd paid in '73.
Put a decent TDI engine in there somewhere and I'm convinved it would wipe the floor with the modern MPV.
CF
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In the 1960's they were the ultimate hippy vehicle on the overland to Katmandu from Europe route. Air-cooled so no radiators to boil up in the desert. Weight over the driving wheels for mud and sand. Mobile home so no need to spend on accommodation. Fixable by Ahmed Khan's Mud Hut Motor Shop in Kandahar. Room for paying passengers if money got short. Not unusual to drive one to Goa or somewhere and sell to someone who wanted to drive it back. Would run on East European petrol made from coal which was often about 60 octane Best when painted in psychedelic colours while smoking a bit of best Afghan hash.
Recently in Darwin I saw a goodly number of these doing similar work around the Australian highways. Some were the split-screen ones of the late fifties, early sixties, the wide screen one came in in 1968 IIRC. Marvellous concept for a vehicle.
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I spoke to the guy that has imported Beetles and the old air cooled vans from mexico a few weeks ago at a vw show, I understood it was only the Beetle that was being discontinued, he was still taking orders for campers, and they looked great.
Why stop production of the Beetle, I know it was slow and the new regulations on emmissions had stretched the engine to the limits, but it must be cheap to build after all these years, although there was only one component that was identical to the original 1946 model and that was a rubber seal somewhere I forget.
If it was made in small numbers and sold world wide i'm sure it would have kept another generation of students mobile.
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Will those engines be up to the new emission regs?
H
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I think they are using a new(er) fuel injected engine with (a bit) more ooomph and presumably rather cleaner.
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Ah the 60's G and a most unusual vehicle.
Remember from my pulls in those days they were prone to having weed in all sorts of funny places.....and did they pong....
DVD
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DVD we brought one back once from India on one of our many tripos back and forth from UK. Before leaving Afghanistan we literally scrubbed the thing down inside and all over before reaching the Afghan/Iran border. We also had to be careful to watch Iranian Customs police, because they were fond of planting stuff on the unwary. Also Afghan kids used to run alongside the van and throw lumps of hash in through the windows hoping to get a few coins.
All proceeded well till we drove off the ferry at Newhaven. Customs must have had a slack night because they were going to nail us if they could. The fact they found a bong pipe really energised them. So we were there six hours interrogated together and separately and strip searched and verbally abused and I was a bit concerned UK Customs wanted us so bad they would also have no compunction in planting the evidence. I remember insisting that any inspection of the vehicle must be undertaken with one of us present and they diodn't like at at all. Used rude words like "Sonny" etc. Anyway we had the total air of the innocent which we were and they gave up in disgust.
At 3 a.m. we dropped off one of the girls at her place in Hove and went in for a much need coffee. Meanwhile the local Morris Minor Panda in baby blue with white doors happened by. There was a knock on the door. Who is the owner of this vehicle outside which does not display a current tax disc etc etc. Well officer we've just driven back from India and haven't had the time to tax it. Pull the other one, sir. It's true, let me show you my passport stamps. Shows passport stamps. b***** me sir if you'll pardon the expression. Don't s'pose (snigger) you've got anything to smoke in there have you? (You'll have to excuse the remembered dialogue, this was 1970). Absolutely not officer, you can check with Newhaven Customs, they wanted some too, but they couldn't find any.
All right all right, enough of that, you get that thing taxed tomorrow you hear?
The "pong" you mention was most often the smell of those uncured woolly Afghan jackets that everyone wore then. We used to bring a stack back and sell them in Brighton Market.
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