Table of contents for Issue 79 in VWt

Good morning VWt, a friend of mine tagged me in your recent post about a write up on our Vans, so I thought I’d drop you an email about mine. It’s only a Caddy mind. I’ve grown up with VW Vans in the family. All of my dad’s side had Bay Windows, one of which is still going strong and remains in the family to this day! As a result, we spent many weekends away in Volkswagens, or camping out at various VW events. My grandparents and my dad both now own T5s, and do a lot of travelling around Europe. My dad has been nagging me for years about saving up and getting my own Van so I can tag along on their trips (and I suspect so I…

MARCH 23-24 The VolksWorld Show Sandown Park Esher, Surrey KT10 9AJ www.volksworldshows.com APRIL 05-07 Dubs at the Mill Haselbury Mill, near Yeovil, Somerset www.scrumpydubbers.co.uk/ datm-2019 06-07 Dub Shed Eikon Exhibition Centre, Lisburn, Northern Ireland www.dubshed.com 14 GTI Spring Festival Santa Pod Raceway, Northants NN29 7XA www.vwaction.com/gtispring 14 Elsecar at the Races Doncaster Racecourse & Exhibition Centre, Ledger Way, Doncaster, DN2 6BB www.elsecarattheraces.com 18-22 CamperFest Churchill House, Queen’s Park Campus, Queen’s Park Road, Chester, CH4 7AD www.camperfest.co.uk 19-21 Bus Types VW Show Oswestry Showground, Shropshire www.bus-types.co.uk 19-22 Dubs in Wonderland Himley Hall, Dudley, DY3 4DF www.dubscollective.com MAY 03-06 The Only Meet Is Essex Orsett Showground, Essex www.vw-tomie.co.uk 5 Stanford Hall Stanford Hall, Stanford-on-Avon, LE17 6DH www.stanfordhallvw.com 10-12…

“going waste free became a natural part of our daily endeavours” It has been three years since me and my friend Tom embarked on a three-month road trip around Europe. A three-part article for this magazine captured a few of the many adventures we had during that trip, but things in our lives have changed a lot since then, not least I have got my own 1997 1.9 TD T4, and I’ve called her ‘Billy. I have taken Billy around the UK on various short trips at stages throughout her self-built conversion and, after a year of ownership, she was almost finished. I daren’t say finished because when is a Van ever really finished? “I didn’t have to eat any more ‘Full English Breakfast in a Tin’” Anyway, I decided…

“CinderGoo would go to the ball after all” I know you all missed my monthly rambling the past two issues but, you know what they say, ‘too much of a Goo thing is bad for you.’ Groan. But rest assured my loyal friends, I am well and truly back. There is no way I could leave you with Jolly Jim and Pete the Meat for any longer, although I hope their introductions gave you some idea of what I have to put up with here at VWt HQ. I’m sure you have all already guessed that most of what they say is a wind up, but unfortunately there is also some truth in their words. Namely, my trusty steed is still off the road with turbo problems. Admittedly, it’s mainly…

“Every panel was dented [and] it stunk of Dulux paint” Being the cool cat that Spence is, his petrolhead past is worthy of mention as it started with racing motorbikes. Back then, Spence was loading his steeds into the back of a clapped out Vauxhall Movano (eugh, I think I just had a little bit of sick in my mouth) of which the sliding door used to fall off even at the thought of opening it. All his buddies were racing out of T5s, but in 2011, as it was at the time, Spence was making the leap of faith and had just opened his own tattoo studio (Eternal Art) in Rugby. The budget for wheels was therefore tight, and the luxuriousness of a T5 loaded with state-of-the-art bikes was…

“We are genuinely dealing with a real-life Marvel character here” We all know about the versatility of a VW Van, right? It’s been well documented, not least in these very pages. Well, hold tight because we’re about to document some more, but this time there’s an element of Hollywood meets real life about the story. How cool would it be to combine your day job with the passion of something you love and, in doing so, enhance your enjoyment of work? David Jones and son, Kai, have done just that. Not only are they squeezing every inch of fun and adventure from their time on this giant rotating space rock, they’re also doing their best to make sure other people get to do the same for a lot longer as…

“a sense of community and coming together for the love of all things VW” Last November’s Flat Four Hangout was the first collaboration event from 464 Co. and Flat Four Society, and was all about doing some good. The idea was to create a chilled-out, one-day show that would hopefully raise some money for the Nottingham Burns Unit who treated their good friend, Billy Wheldale, after an awful accident, and The Air Ambulance who fought to try and save co-founder of the Hangout, Neilroy’s, father’s life seven years ago. Both tragic events were driving forces behind the event and it was a touching moment on the day when Neilroy dedicated the show to the memory of his father. In addition to all that, the guys also wanted to give people…

Having run a VW service-based company in the past myself, I can say from experience there are two distinct types of customer. The first wants everything done on a shoestring, and always chooses the budget option. The second will let you blow the budget, and often allow you to have some creative input, too. I can’t speak for Visiontech, but I liked both. The former paid the bills and kept their VWs on the road, but also allowed me to really splurge on the higher budget builds when they came along. But when you’ve established a name in the industry, like Dan Lewis at Visiontech undoubtedly has, you tend to attract the customers with a bit more spending power. These days Dan is so busy – he’d just returned from…

Having a lot of friends with experience of T5s, T4s and all types of air-cooled VWs, when I said I was looking for a T5 I received an abundance of advice on what to look for, and what to avoid. I already had a good idea of what I wanted the finished Van to look like, and had made a list of parts to factor in the cost of when buying a base Van. These included a facelift kit, alloys, coilovers and purple paint. After searching the internet for a suitable base T5, and finding nothing in my budget, I started looking for older posts that may have been missed or overlooked. And that’s where I spotted a single post advertising this particular T5 for sale in Bournemouth. A quick…

47-year old Vincent Povey has been a petrolhead forever. He explains: “I grew up in Dartford, Kent and my first car was a Super Beetle, which I bought with a seized engine, and went on to repair and restore.” Then, sometimes around ’94, Vince moved to the Isle of Sheppey where he developed a taste for hot hatches. Working his way through a Peugeot 205 GTi, a CTi (cabriolet version) and then a 1.9 GTi (great little cars!), he moved onto a Sierra Cosworth and later a BMW cabriolet. “Then I ended up with a Mk1 Golf GTi cabriolet. It had a Mohair roof and that fuel injected 1800cc motor was a screamer… I really loved that car.” That one stayed for three years, but when Vince developed a taste…

January saw the very first VolksWorld Spares Day, held at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, West Sussex, and for the first one ever it was a very impressive turnout. With PK up north covering Run to the Hun, myself and Jolly Jim decided to brave the bitterly cold wind and go and check out the action. The clue is in the name. Spares Day is VolksWorld magazine’s new one-day swap meet and show, specifically aimed at bringing you guys another opportunity to grab any little bits you’ve been dreaming of over those lonely winter months while show season is in hibernation. It’s also a great little prelude to the main event – The VolksWorld Show, held at Sandown Park, Surrey on 23-24 March. Whether it be something new…