Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i VWT Lifestyle

Chris Steer, ’69 Bay Window I have always been a huge fan of everything Volkswagen, having had many modern models as daily drivers as well as being a long-term owner of a VR6 engined Mk2 Golf GTi. In 2015 my partner and I went camping with my brother-in-law and family, who at the time owned a lovely T4. He’d joked prior to the trip that I’d want a camper by the end of it. On the last (wet) day of our trip I was jealous of him not having to pack away a soggy tent. And yes – you guessed it – that night the search for a Camper began. A week later I mentioned to my father that I wanted to buy a Camper, who then suggested maybe we…

“we spoke to our respective wives to see if they wanted to come but they convinced us we’d be better off on our own” We were sat in a pub after a MTB ride and thought what a good idea it would be for us to go to watch the Tour de France and drive to the Alps in our three classic VW Campers. Mine’s the blue and white ’70s Bay Window. It’s got a 1776cc motor and it’s been lowered with a Red9Design front beam and I call her Corina. My friend Wayne Phillips owns the ’80s T3 hightop with 18in wheels and a home-built kitchen, and Chris Pease, or Spud, as he’s known, has the ’90s T4. He’s lowered it and has done a full self-build camper conversion…

Lee Darch and Samantha Russell began their camping exploits some 25 years ago with a tent. Compared to the stunning, Indium Grey VW T6.1 high-top Transporter they’ve recently acquired, there couldn’t be a greater contrast! Converted from a Panel Van in just five weeks by Camperkraft in Cheshire, the couple are over the moon with their new campervan and can’t wait to put it to good use. “We bought our first tent back in 1996 when our first daughter was born,” Sam tells us. “By the time our second daughter came along four years later we’d enjoyed camping that much we decided to buy a bigger frame tent.” Compared to the more advanced canvas offerings today, a frame tent took some getting used to, especially when it came to erecting…

NEW T6.1 SPORTLINE IS OUT How about this as a base for your next camper conversion? As you read this, the first few lucky owners will be taking delivery of the spanking new T6.1 Sportline. It’s available in short or long wheelbase versions, and as either a Kombi or Panel Van, and features a range of unique sporty styling additions and technology upgrades, ensuring the perfect combination of sport and comfort. The first thing to catch the eye is the front end which features a contrasting red grille strip and a new bumper, while at the rear there is an eye-catching new spoiler, all of which are exclusive to the Sportline range. The suspension has also been lowered by 30mm, and illuminated side bars added. Those 18in alloys are painted…

Forty-nine-year-old Mark McGrath is certainly no stranger to air-cooled VWs. Indeed, his first car was a Beetle – a red 1971 1302S bought for the princely sum of £1400 – and he’s had at least one VW in his possession ever since. “My older cousins introduced me to the scene,” reveals Mark. “I always loved what they did to their cars and was keen to create something similar, something that would really stand out from the crowd.” Unfortunately, he was initially denied that opportunity because fate played a cruel hand with that first Bug – he hit a tree and it was written off. But at least his brief ownership proved fortunate in one repsect, as Mark discovered the Leeds-based specialist Herbie Hospital, an acquaintance that would prove fruitful years…

Whatever the country, there always seems to be a small group of hardcore VW enthusiasts who you’ll see proudly displaying their cars at most local events. Robin and Paul Serventi certainly fit the description; then again, some of their friends might argue you can’t expect less from them, since the couple have been heavily involved with the scene since the early 1980s. “We met in ’82 at a Blitzkrieg VW car club meeting”, ponders Robin. “We became friends, but did not go on our first date until seven years later – we were married in 1990.” “When the kids were younger, they loved to eat their breakfast at the table before their Dad drove them to school in the Bus” Blitzkrieg was a typical Californian Volkswagen club of the era,…

With so many events being cancelled in the Spring of 2021, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that the second VW Breakout event (the first was in September last year) would be taking place at Santa Pod over the weekend on 28-30 May. That said, we had been very impressed by the previous meet as the team had worked out a great Covid cleansing routine in and around the race stands and food court / trade area hence if anywhere was going to be able to put on a safe event that met all the regs, it would be Santa Pod. With VW Breakout replacing the old Big Bang event in ’21, perhaps the most notable difference was that there was no music tents or bands (for obvious reasons). The…

COOLER WITH MAKITA Who from: www.makitauk.com How much: £550 A road trip isn’t complete without a plentiful supply of snacks and thanks to Makita, keeping food and drinks cool or warm in any season is possible with its latest 18V Cordless Cooler and Warmer Box. This useful product is way more than a traditional cooler box as it can keep food and drinks either cool, warm or frozen and can be powered by three power source options: either with a Makita 18V LXT Li-Ion battery (two in parallel, or one), an in vehicle 12V/24V AC (cigarette socket), or with a 240V mains supply – making this an incredibly versatile unit for all journeys. It can operate at two warming settings of 55° and 60°, and five cooling settings of -18°,…

When we sat down to have a chat about Steve’s gorgeous T5.1 Highline you see before you, my first question was, “Have you owned any other interesting cars in the past?” What followed was an unbelievable list of toys, which left me with my chin on the ground. Suffice to say, Jay Leno is possibly the only person on the planet that may have registered more vehicles in his name! Steve’s very conservative estimate was “hundreds, just hundreds,” and that’s pretty amazing when you consider he’s just a regular guy with a single lock-up. I’ve met millionaires with huge garages housing private collections of cars that pale into insignificance in comparison to Steve’s ‘street fleet’ of rad rides. As Steve casually rolled off a seemingly never-ending list of classics, yanks…

Tony Martin explains he’s been into Volkswagens for years, “I’ve had a 1968 Bay Window Camper since 2007 but I always fancied getting a Splittie too.” Split Screen Campers are obviously desirable, but there’s always a few out there to choose from if you have the asking price. However, Tony had his mind set on something a little rarer, a crew cab Pick-Up version. Officially called the Double Cab Pick-Up when introduced by Binz Karosseriefabrik in October 1953 they became commonly known as a ‘Doka’ (an abbreviation of ‘Doppelkabine’ – the German for double cab). Binz built around 550 but ceased production in early 1959 after Volkswagen introduced their own factory-built Doka in November 1958. Capable of carrying 1543lb plus a driver, 826lb and five people or any combination thereof,…

As many of you will already know, lowering a T4 is a pretty straightforward affair, especially if you’re looking to perform a mild drop and fit some uprated dampers, which is something we seem to have had quite a few enquiries about recently. The Van in question is a an early T4 California, which came in from Germany as a bone stock Camper. Given the additional weight of the camping interior (and water tanks etc), the handling was a little wayward and there was a fair amount of roll when cornering. Now, as this one had to be capable of driving across a campsite field, we didn’t want to go too radical – especially as we wanted to fit larger diameter wheels with low profile tyres. The previous owner had…

Owner info Name: Ian Cushway Job: Editor Fleet: 2006 T5 Multivan, Polo 1.0 TSi, Passat B6 Work this month: Fitting replacement 1.6D engine in a T25 To be honest, I was pretty gutted when the news came through that the T25’s engine was beyond repair. It was that old sinking feeling you get when you mentally tot up just how much all this was costing. The inexpensive T25 I’d bought was looking less and less like a bargain after all. I toyed with the idea of buying a secondhand complete 1.6D engine but when I looked there weren’t any. And anyway I didn’t want to risk buying something that might be just as knackered as the engine I was pulling out. The other option would have been to have fitted…

“The few odd gripes apart, we considered the leap from T1 to T2 represented a very worthwhile advance” Back in 1967, we recorded in Safer Motoring the first major change in Volkswagen’s Type 2 commercial range. With Type 2-T1 becoming, confusingly, Type 2-T2, the new-look model was introduced, with its ‘Bay Window’ frontal styling, and the double-jointed rear suspension that gave it much more acceptable roadholding. Volkswagen Motors in Britain were unable to provide a test vehicle for some considerable time, but help was forthcoming in the person of Ray Thacker, MD of Britain’s biggest VW dealership Colindale Service Station in London’s Edgware Road. Colindale sent us a bit of a surprise in the shape of a motor caravan conversion on the newly restyled commercial by Canterbury Pitt – not…