New Zealand Splittie Campervan, re-visited!

A friend just returned from a four-week-trip to New Zealand and sent me photos of this beautiful T1 split window campervan. He spotted it this January 2015 in Kerikeri on the North Island. Turns out I had spotted the very same bus in Feb 2012 during our parental leave in New Zealand as well – small world! Here is a link to the older post with some more information on this bus and also more photos. Just re-traced that this bus is one of the kombis you can rent from Kiwi Kombis. Some more detail on their web page: It is called Van Five aka ‘Coffee ‘n’ Cream’ and it is a 1962 Custom Westfalia with the 1.6Litre motor. Nice to see it is still up and going! Many thanks to Gernot for the photos!

Happy New Year from Berlin!

Two days ago the snow arrived in Berlin! Two days later, it’s mostly gone again. But we had two great winter days, with lots of pulling our 3-year-old on a sled around our block and through the nearest park. No winter pictures of our buses, so below is a beautifully snowed in T3/T25 Atlantic Vanagon from our neighborhood. Thanks for coming to my blog and following it over the last year. Wishing you all the best for the New Year!

More Flea Market Findings!

Look what I bought myself! Found these three little buses a while ago on a flea market in Berlin. The blue one is an early bay window Dormobile Volkwagen camper from Matchbox (Series 23, © 1970, Made in England) with an English number plate. I guess there may once have been some kind of canvass attached to the fold up roof. The late bay window police bus says it is a Majorette No. 214 (“Fourgon VW, Made in France”, scale 1:60). Fourgon seems to be French for panel van. The other late bay window from the German Red Cross in Nuremberg is from Schuco (Made in Germany, scale 1:66, Model 817010) and proudly announces 60 PS and a top speed of 125 km/h. Love the scratches and how they turn out in these close-up photos. Original patina from decades of hard playing!

Dream Time T4 Campervan

Unusual campervan spotted two weeks ago in Berlin: Some serious work put into creating this Australian Aboriginal-inspired art work. And it seems they got some authentic Australian wildlife together as well, with a goanna, two platypuses, three turtles and a jelly fish. Also a nice reminiscence to the first generation split-window bus and its hippie past, with the painted-on V shape and the peace sign on the front. Thought first the bus was originally green and then white was painted on, but it seems to be the other way around. What a beautiful and impressive paint job!

Geelong Late Bay Camper

1975 campervan spotted in May in Geelong, Australia. Roo bars back and front. Also a pop-up roof one sees a lot over there, but not sure which conversion (Sunliner, Sopru?). Nice original-looking color with 1970ies stripes on the side. Large roof rack bridging the pop-up roof, with awnings on both sides, and plastic tubes at front and rear for addional storage. Fan pull switch in the dashboard I did not know yet but have seen in many late bays during this visit. What a very cool and down-to-earth camper!

PS, @Zero-to-sixty: Gear shift scheme on this ash tray (and in all late bays on this Australia trip) without the N for Neutral. But all were T2b’s or T2a/b hybrids, no T2a’s. Greetings from Berlin!

PS2 (Jan 2016): It is a Sopru camper, not a Sunliner. See also this Sopru blog post.

Sage Green Summer Ad

Almost a bit too much hippie kombi kitsch in one advert – sage green late bay campervan, surf board and man playing guitar. Not sure why there is a shark in the pond. But nice to see random kombi pictures here and there. And probably interesting to look back at this photo in a couple of years and ponder how cheap petrol was in 2014: Super/premium for 1,509 Euro per liter (about 2,20 AU$ per liter or 7,80 US$ per gallone).

Sage Green Family Meeting

Nice encounter last weekend at the local DIY market: Taiga Lily met a cousin, a 1977 Westfalia camper in identical Taiga Gruen/Sage Green, freshly restored and in fantastic condition. Beautiful new paint job, fold-up roof also freshly re-sprayed. Also met the owner and learnt about another group of kombi fanatics here in Berlin. Greetings to Ruediger – looking forward to catching up with you guys sometime later this summer!

Melbourne Late Bay Campervan

Photos taken last week during a visit to Melbourne. The color is probably marino yellow (VW color code E6E6). Not sure what kind of camper conversion this is, but she looked truly beautiful.

2014 National VW Club Bug-In

We are back to Australia for a couple of weeks, visiting family and friends in Geelong and Melbourne. From German spring to a still very warm and sunny Australian autumn. There are less and less VW buses on the road each time we come over, but you still see many more than in Germany. And last Saturday all my wishes came true and we found a VW festival with show and shine event right here in Geelong, at the water front. Lots of people from the VW Club of Western Australia. Just learnt from their web site that this was the National VW Club Bug-In, a Volkswagen meeting hosted by a VW club from a different state every year over the Easter weekend. Great buses, great weather, and fantastic to speak to fellow VW fans at the other end of the world! Below is a first set of snapshots, including a beautifully restored VW type 3. Will post on some of the buses in more detail soon!

Early bay window, first registered in 1973 in Geelong

1974 Rat-look bay window

Pre-1970 VW 1500 / type 3

1977 Sopru Campervan

Beetle parade

Peppa Pig and the Campervan

I had never heard of Peppa Pig before our little supergirl introduced me. Very cute british cartoon that explains the world clearly understandable for a two-year-old. And there is even something in it for the kombi nerd – two episodes where Peppa and her family discover the joy of camping in a campervan. Which, only weakly disguised, turned out to be a Volkswagen bus. Girst I was a bit unsure but then the engine in the back clearly gave it away. The side ways-fold up roof would make it a dormobile campervan conversion. Below are some screenshots and the youtube links. Hope you like it as well!