Hire-a-Kombi on the Bellarine, Victoria

Last weekend was a special treat for me as the kombi fan in the family. Our friends Jodi and Campbell rented a campervan from Hire-a-Kombi and we spent a camping weekend together on the Mornington peninsula. So last Saturday, we picked up the camper together. Hire-a-Kombi are located on the Bellarine highway (1830 Bellarine Hwy, Marcus Hill VIC 3222). On that day, three of their eight kombis were getting ready for pick-up: In addition to our campervan “Clancy”, an orange-and-white 1974 Westfalia camper, two eight-seater buses were ready for use as wedding limousines: Layla is a mustard-yellow T2ab hybrid from 1972. Harriett is a cream white T2b late bay window bus.

Clancy, our 1974 Westfalia campervan

Layla (mustard yellow) and Harriett (cream white), the two wedding limousines

And there was another beautiful kombi that looked ready for action, an orange Sopru campervan (see this older post on another Sopru). The color could be Riverina Orange (Australian VW color code CLR722). She is not yet on the web site of Hire-a-Kombi, but perhaps about to join the fleet soon?

The Sopru campervan

In addition to these ready-to-drive kombis, there was an amazing armada of old kombis and campervans, lined up along one side of the property. Some are future projects, some others may serve as spare part supplies. We had stumbled over this kombi parade already at the end of 2015, see this older blog post, but it was, again, an impressive sight. Great start into our “kombi weekend” – more to come soon!

 

 

Awesome Australian T1 Campervan

Cool split-window bus spotted yesterday on the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff in Victoria, Australia. Minimalistic camper with pop-up roof and rock-and-roll bed/bench, but no furniture in the back. With the larger rear window and rear lid of the late T1 buses, this kombi is probably from between 1964 and 1967. Safari fold-up windows at the front and US-style double bumper bars as nice extras. Wonder if the double sliding window in the rear right is original, or if two smaller windows have been combined here? Makes this a 12-window instead of a 13-window bus. Cool sticker: “I did my bit, I saved a split”. Good on you!

Sunliners of Melbourne

I stumbled about this beauty yesterday during a visit to Melbourne: A T2b late bay window Volkswagen campervan, probably from between 1976 and 1979 (see the engine lid hinges), in what could be Neptune blue (L50K). The campervan conversion is from Sunliner, a company based in Melbourne and still active, but nowadays converting various non-Volkswagen buses. Here is a link to a beautifully restored Sunliner late bay camper we spotted in 2015 in Geelong. This bus here comes with roo bars in the front and rear, spare wheel on the front, a pop-up roof in the rear with a luggage section above the driver’s cabin, and nice wooden furniture, with the kitchen block with gas cooker and fridge behind the passenger seat and a compartment for the gas bottle behind the driver’s seat. Funky 1970ies white and blue stripe design on both sides.

 

This van seems to be parking in this spot and in the harsh Australian sun for a while already. The lining of the driver’s door is peeling off from the heat, the plastic glasses of the front indicators have gone blind, and there is extensive rust on the roof. Usually you will never see this type of surface rust on campervans in Germany. With the long German winters with salt on the roads, the buses have rotten away from rust in the wheel houses, the sillboards and the complete underfloor, years before any rust on the roof can develop. The wheel houses on this one, however, are in an amazingly good condition. It is a bit of a sleeping beauty and will need some work to fix all the little problems and conserve it for the future. But great to see it has survived so long, in probably pretty much original condition!

Jumping two decades forward in time, another Sunliner parked just around the corner. This one a campervan based on a Mazda E2000 van, probably from the mid- to late-1990ies. It also comes with a roo bar with spare wheel on the front and a small bar in the rear. Here the gas cooker and fridge are placed behind the driver’s seat while the sink and a microwave are behind the passenger seat. Fiamma awning on the left side, solar panels on the roof. And the long wheel base allows for a large bed in the rear that turns into two opposing benches and a central table. Not the coolness factor of a Volkswagen kombi, but also a very nice campervan.

 

1972 Australian Post Delivery Van

This is something like one of those famous „barn findings“: A 1972 Volkswagen panel van that started out as delivery van for the Australian Postal service, at that time (and until 1975) still called the Post Master General’s Department or PMG. In 1975 it had an accident, was put aside and forgotten. When I saw the van at a VW garage in Geelong in December 2015, the owner had bought it still with the accident marks (rear right corner bumped in), but otherwise in very original (and very dusty) condition, and the plan was to keep it original as well. The damage to the rear right corner was fixed already. A different engine was built in as a temporary fix (not sure if the original engine was lost or beyond repair). The van was already registered and roadworthy, with a “Victoria club permit” for classic cars. The speedometer showed 35.935 miles which may really have been the true mileage, seeing that the van was only on the road between 1972 to 1975. It also showed hardly any serious rust, and what rust there was looked like surface rust rather than a deeper problem, e.g. on the roof in the rear right.

 

 

This kombi is one of the “T2ab hybrid” buses from 1971/72 with a mix of features from both of the early bay window T2a buses (indicators on the front still down, front bumper still of the rounder type and end serving as door steps) and the late bay window T2b buses (more rectangular air intakes on the sides in the rear, rectangular and not oval back lights). Not sure if the T2b hub cups here are original, thought that the T2ab buses still came with the cups from the early bay buses (see e.g. this early bay van) . The letters “PMG” for Post Master General on the front doors were probably officially removed when the van was taken out of service, but they are still faintly visible on the front doors.

Some interesting details: Aluminum-coated insulation mats on the walls in the rear. Wonder if this was original at the time? Perhaps for the Australian market with the local hotter temperatures? Nice and probably also original feature: Little plate with “Accident free driving is our aim”, white on postal-red background, in the center of the dashboard. Otherwise no frills, probably typical for vans bought for the public service: Glove box without lid, no radio and the slot still closed with original cover. Small triangle windows in the front doors cannot be opened. In Germany, at least for the late bay window busses, such minimally equipped panel vans came with the outer rear view mirrors and the wheels and hub cups sprayed in the same color as the car (instead of chrome or silver color coat).

Back in Australia!

We are back in Australia! We made the long trip from Berlin to Melbourne two days ago, this time with a stopover in Abu Dhabi instead of Singapore. Now we are slowly getting over the jetlag. And we have four weeks ahead of us to visit family and friends, in Geelong and Melbourne. Australia gave us a warm welcome, with late summer temperatures in the mid- to high twenties. First time this year that we are all wearing sunscreen, sunnies and T-shirts. And kombi-crazy Australia did not let me down either, with a first T2 Westfalia campervan sighting already on the way from Melbourne airport to Geelong. Looking forward to seeing many Volkswagen buses in the next couple of weeks!

Late summer day in Geelong.

First Aussie kombi spotting in 2017 🙂

Geelong Sleeping Beauty

Here is a late bay window kombi we saw last November somewhere in suburbia in Geelong, Australia. It is a Sopru campervan which may have started its life in yellow and was then re-sprayed in light green. Sopru pop-up roof and Sopru roo bars at the front. Front wall panels and bench matrasses in the rear newly upholstered at some point. Furniture in there rear looks a bit self-built, but then I do not know the Sopru conversions in detail. Another customer of “V-Dubs Only“. Looks like put away and waiting for the next holiday season. Hope it has a lot of holiday trips ahead!

 

 

 

Bay Window Get-Together

Two bay window buses on a sunny summer day last December in Geelong, Australia. The green one is in overall better condition. It is from 1978 and comes with a CJ engine (2L, 70 h.p.) and an automatic gear box. The red one, with some severe rust, is from 1974 and comes with an AP engine (1.8 L). Looked like the home of a Volkswagen lover, with a more modern VW Golf in the drive-way. Stickers advertising for “V-Dubs Only – VW Air Cooled specialist” on the rear window. I was spotting these stickers on several buses during this visit- perhaps a new player in the field of Classic Volkswagen workshops in the Geelong area? They don’t seem to have a web site, but this facebook page. Will add the address to the list of VW garages to the list in the section above.

 

 

 

 

1954 Barn Door Kombi

I found this awesome split-window kombi in April 2014 in Geelong. I had knocked on the door of a shed to ask if I could take a few photos of an old rusty late bay in the backyard. Turned out this was the workshop of a panel beater who loves kombis and has restored quite a few over the years. On that day the hall housed two splitties and a late bay in various stages of restoration. This blue-and-white T1 was about to be completed. It is a VW bus kombi from 1954, so one of the very first kombis ever built, and I was told there may be only a handful of these early ones with right-wheel-steering left in Australia. A lot of panels were rusted trough and had to be made from scratch. All welding was done with the ambition that even an expert from Volkswagen should not be able to recognize which parts were original and which had been replaced later.

The split-window bus or Volkswagen T1 was built in Germany from 1950 till 1967. Over the years, the rear doors of the T1s changed most strongly: the very first models came with a very large door for the engine bay (“big as a barn door”). The photo below shows that the large engine bay also housed the petrol tank (on the left) and the spare wheel (on a shelf above the engine). Over the years the engine bay and its lid became smaller and smaller and a door above was introduced as access to the cargo area. This upper door also changed in size over the various facelifts. The latest splitties (1964 onwards) already feature the same large rear doors which from 1967 onwards were then also used in the T2s or bay window buses.

The paint job was carried out with normal glossy paint on the inside, but with matt finish on the outside, to avoid the shiny and polished finish of a fully restored van. With a bit of wear and tear this bus will quickly develop some patina. It also comes a bit lowered and with Porsche Fuchs wheels – tribute to modern coolness.

VolksAir, a Geelong-based VW Garage

Three weeks ago I had a chance to visit VolksAir, a garage specialised on air-cooled Volkswagens in North Geelong, where a wrecked blue-and-white kombi at the entrance shows the way. For those interested, I will add the address and telephon number in the VW garage list above. It is always exciting to enter a workshop filled with kombis, and it was great chatting with the owner, Frank, who has been a kombi mechanic and fan for decades. I had already visited this garage during our last visit to Australia in April 2014, so below are some photos from December 2015 (with a blue and white Sopru camper on the left) and two snapshots from April 2014 (with two campers and a highroof kombi). The yellow Sopru camper is from 1975 and there are some more photos of it in this older blog post. Thanks to Frank for taking the time to show me around!

A Subway / MuzzBuzz Coffee Van

This kombi used to park at an intersection in Geelong on a corner shared by a Subway restaurant and Muzz Buzz, a drive-through coffee place. Interesting paintjob: Depending on the angle you look at it, it would look like a billboard for Subway or like a Muzz Buss coffee van (love the “Mobile Caffeine Response Unit”). Perhaps they served the coffee out of this van before the little coffee shop on the site was erected? I believe this was originally a Sopru camper. Suddenly I see Soprus everywhere. The pop-up roof looks like a Sopru, and the typical Sopru front roo bar has been chopped down to a front wheel support. The seats are newly upholstered in the Muzz Buzz colors. When I took these photos in April 2014, it was retired from active service, parked in a corner and had suffered from a break-in (window in driver’s door smashed and shattered over the front seats, fixed with a plexiglass). Now, 18 months later, it is gone. Hope it is on good hands and perhaps has started its next life.