Table of contents for Issue 169 - May 2026 in VWt

IT’S BEEN PEDAL TO THE METAL... Welcome to the May issue. It’s been totally bonkers here at VWt Towers. What with all the preparation and lead up to The VolksWorld Show, which resulted in our biggest ever display of Transporters in the VWt Paddock, and putting the magazine together at the same time, I’ve hardly had time to breathe, let alone do anything remotely worthwhile, like feed the dog or go out on my bike! Add in to the mix a trip to Spain in my T5.1, and a flying visit to Italy to see our friends at camper accessory manufacturer, Fiamma, near Milan, and you’ll begin to appreciate how hectic it’s been. That said, it’s been fun. Despite an inauspicious start, my van did the 2000-mile round trip to…

The T6 under the magnifying glass here marks the final chapter in a journey that began with a T4, continued through building a T5, and culminated in the purchase of a T6.1 with a Caddy thrown in for good measure. You see Tony had a plan, a challenge that he set himself. A Bay Leaf green T6.1 was always the goal, the end game, but he wanted to see if it was possible to build a number of projects and effectively trade his way up to his dream bus. His previous builds, the T4 and T5 were both the subject of magazine features and laid the path for this T6. With an impressive skillset in joinery and having worked for Dormobile these were private projects in which he was able…

APRIL 17-19th ALIVE & KICKIN Haughley Park, Suffolk See facebook MAY 2026 3rd STANFORD HALL VW SHOW Stanford Hall, Leicestershire Stanfordhallvw.com 21st-25th DUBS IN THE MIDDLE Hanley Castle Country Estate, Worcestershire WR8 OAA Dubsinthemiddle.co.uk 29th-31st VANLIFE FESTIVAL The West Midlands Showground, Shrewsbury SY1 2PF Thevanlifefestival.co.uk 31st STONOR VW SHOW Stonor Park, Henley on Thames RG9 6HF Theabvwc.wixsite.com JUNE 7th ALIVE & V-DUBBIN FESTIVAL Haughley Park, Suffolk Aliveandvdubbin.co.uk 12th-14th BRISTOL VOLKSFEST Birches Farm, Bristol, BS48 3RN Bristolvolksfest.co.uk 19th-21st VANLIFE FEST Scampston Hall, Malton, North Yorks Vanlifefest.co.uk JULY 2026 2nd-5th VANS IN THE VALLEY Reeth, North Yorks Vansinthevalley.com 3rd-5th EUROPEAN BUG-IN Chimay, Belgium Europeanbugin.com 3rd-5th CAMPER JAM Weston Park Camperjam.com 10th-12th VOLKSWEALD Penshurst, Kent Volksweald.co.uk 19th ENDLESS SUMMER VW SHOW Vicargage Farm Park, Basingstoke See facebook 23rd-26th DUBBED OUT FESTIVAL Royal Cheshire Showground, Knutsford Dubbedoutfestival.co.uk 24th-26th BUGJAM FESTIVAL 39 Santa Pod Raceway, Northants Bugjam.co.uk 31st-2nd T3 BUS MEET Upton upon Severn, Worcester WR8 OPB T3busmeet.com AUGUST 7th-9th VW FESTIVAL Harewood House, Leeds LS17 9LG Vwfestival.co.uk SEPTEMBER…

“We had to think outside the box; we wanted to be original” Lee Barlow has always been in love with the Volkswagen life. The shows, the festivals, the drag racing at Santa Pod… and more than anything else, the people. He’s lost count of how many VWs he’s owned – it’s somewhere north of a hundred – and, in 2021, he arrived at a turning point. It wasn’t just the people, but one person in particular. For this was the year that he met Kate Boittier, and everything he loved about this lifestyle got even better. “At the time, I had a VW LT46 which I’d fully converted into an off-grid camper,” says Lee. “It quickly became apparent that our love of VWs was very mutual, along with the whole…

There is a specific kind of silence that only exists in the Gaspé Peninsula. It’s a place where the St. Lawrence River finally yields to the Atlantic, and the wind carries the scent of salt and pine. In 2020, while the rest of the world was retreating behind closed doors, I found myself parked on a cliffside in a converted GMC. My buddy, Kevin, a plumber by trade, had converted an idle work truck into an escape pod with a full camper interior and agreed to let me rent it for a week. By the third night, watching the sunrise over the water from the back of that American rig, I knew I needed this lifestyle. But as a man who has had Volkswagen blood in his veins since the…

“I liked the idea of having no DPF or other diesel-related emission-related issues – and it doesn’t half shift” When VW decided to put a wet belt into the latest T7, it predictably came with much wailing and gnashing of teeth among enthusiasts. In practical terms, it could hardly be called progress. Yes, the emissions may be lower, but the prospects of long-term ownership and the potential costs involved should anything go wrong could prove to be quite costly. Sometimes that’s just down to pure luck, but it’s generally accepted the engines offered in the previous generations of Transporters are more robust. As you’ll be aware, the mainstay of powerplants we see in the vast majority of Transporters less than 30 years old use diesel, but VW did for a…

FIAMMA WINCH AWNINGS We’re big fans of wind-out awnings; they offer shade from the sun, shelter from the rain and because they wind neatly away when not in use, they take seconds to erect and don’t take up valuable interior space in your van. As far as we are concerned, Fiamma have always been the go-to people when buying a winch awning and the great news for Transporter owners is that there’s a range of different ones to choose from. The F40van is compact and quick and easy to use, making it the ideal travel companion for day trips, weekend escapes, or long overland adventures. It has a visible loop for ease of use and the actual arms are reinforced so it’s super strong. The maximum leg height of 220cm…

I’ve had it up to here with rubbish quality aftermarket parts. My painful journey of discovery, which has taught me it’s not worth wasting cash on cr*ap, began a while back when I forked out £120 on a replacement column stalk for my T5.1 in an attempt to get the cruise working. I’d spent ages poring over the online description to ensure I was ordering the correct part yet when it was fitted it instantly sent my van’s electrics into spasm. In short, (excuse the pun), it just didn’t work, and having paid my mechanic Kenny to fit it, waste hours of head-scratching, and take it off again, I had to package it up and return it. A week later, the steering on my wife’s Mk6 Polo started making a…

I’ll start with a confession: I’m not built for modern tech. I’m the sort of person who likes a key you physically put in a barrel, switches that click, heater sliders you can adjust without looking, and a dashboard that doesn’t resemble a tablet glued on as an afterthought. At home, my camper world is a 1969 VW Westfalia; charming, basic, and comprehensible. If something doesn’t work, it’s usually because it’s old, and the fix involves hand tools rather than a software update. So, when VW Commercial Vehicles offered to loan us a brand new VW Grand California for a five-day break to the Isle of Wight, it felt like a bit of a fork in the road. Do I stick with what I know – old-school, slow-paced, slightly chaotic…