[ Life Cycle ]
In the same household since it was bought new, this Volkswagen Type 2 Devon camper has been providing the Wilson family with holidays for more than 59 years
Words JAMES PEENE Photography IAN SKELTON
May 1967 – the Wilsons find their perfect camper
In the world of classic Volkswagens, Robin Wilson’s 1967 Type 2 is quite the unicorn. A mythical, near impossible to find, completely original and untouched gem, Robin’s Devon-converted camper proudly wears its years on its sleeve and while some would deem it the perfect candidate for restoration, to restore or modify it in any way – as the vast majority are – would eradicate nearly 60 years of history. And a one-family-from-new history at that.
Original marketing and sales brochures promise family holidays just like the ones the Wilsons have enjoyed.
Logbook has mileage and fuel consumption of every single journey this VW has made since June 1967!
It’s often said that people buy campervans to create memories for their children, and Robin’s first memory of this totally unrestored and unwelded Volkswagen begins with helping his father search for something to take the family on holiday in. ‘We always knew VWs were good quality and reliable vehicles. We had friends with Beetles and Dad had hired a 1965 ’van for a holiday in Scotland and thought it was a lovely way to go camping. It proved to be much more civilised than tents, and at the time this is exactly what my parents were looking for.
1967 The first family holiday to Ireland
Although there were many campervan conversions on the market at the time from companies such as Canterbury, Dormobile, and Westfalia, there was one in particular that had caught the Wilson family’s eye. ‘I remember going with my father to buy this VW. We’d spent months searching for this exact camper conversion, because we wanted a Devon Caravette Spaceway interior with a Martin Walter pop-top roof and a walk-thru (non-bench seat) model.’
‘The biggest dealer was Wilsons of London – no relation – but even it didn’t have the exact model we wanted. I remember that towards the end of May, Dad eventually phoned the Volkswagen importers or main agents and told them what we were looking for. He got a call back the next day saying, “Mr Wilson, we’ve found the model that you’re looking for, and you won’t believe this, but it’s actually in the showroom at your local Volkswagen dealer in Stourbridge and it is still available.”’
This VW has been loved by three generations
Wasting no time, Robin and his father headed straight to Mill Street Garage in Stourbridge Road where they were greeted by the sight of their perfect specification camper in the colour they most wanted – Cumulous White over Sea Blue.
However, while they were in the showroom and with the ink still drying on the paperwork, Robin’s eye was drawn to a poster advertising the new, revised and upgraded Type 2 – which we now know as the ‘Bay Window’ – that would replace the split screen model in 1968. ‘Sir, what’s that a picture of? It looks like a new sort of van,’ a puzzled Robin asked the salesman. ‘He said, “Oh, that. That’s the new commercial vehicle model Volkswagen has just announced, but we won’t be getting any until after the summer.”’
1969 The Wilson family set up camp in Norway
Nearly 60 years on, Robin says, ‘It’s funny how things turned out, but at the time we were pretty annoyed at missing out on the new model and the significant improvements it brought, but we’re really glad now that we bought a split screen.’
The original purchase invoice for £1246.10.0 and then-contemporary sales brochures were the first bits to be added to what would become this camper’s comprehensive history file, but that’s not even the half of it. A small handwritten notebook contains the mileage and fuel consumption of every single journey this campervan has ever undertaken.
Just 74,000 miles, a fair few abroad
‘Dad had always looked after his cars,’ Robin says. ‘He always had what he called his “logbook” for them, and he religiously recorded his journeys, noting his petrol fill-ups, and how many shots of Red-Ex he had added. It all went in the book.
A new book was bought ready for the VW, and the first page was headed, “Volkswagen Caravette, OWP 295E, 1 June 1967, mileage on delivery about 200”. The first entry was on 6 June, at our local garage in Hagley, Worcestershire: “200 miles (1/4 tank), 8 gallons added (full)”. The next entry was six gallons a few days later – my parents had already put 300 more miles on the clock. From Dad’s diary I can see it was an overnight trip to Snowdonia.'
Their first family holiday in the VW was a tour of Ireland that summer. ‘We had a Morris Traveller as well and we put the canoes on the roof of that and took that, too. My older sister slept in a bell tent. You can sleep five-up in the camper as it has the – optional – roof bunks, but it’s a bit of squeeze.
Robin (seated) tells James of camper’s travels
‘I remember when we were in southern Ireland having breakfast and my mum spilt some milk on the floor and we mopped it up as best we could, parking the van near a stream to wash it out. My brother had the idea of putting some blue plasticine over the cracks to stop anything else we spilt going into them and amazingly, to this day, there is still the same plasticine in the floor. It’s a little more brittle than it was, but it’s survived 60 years!
‘In the summer of 1969, the four of us – minus my brother – went to Norway. By then I was 17, which was very exciting because I could now legally drive the camper, although I’d driven it on quiet local roads for a little before then.
Steel wheels and bumpers repainted around 20 years ago
‘The family ethos has always been that it is to be used, respected, kept clean and enjoyed’
With optional bunks, sleeping space for five
‘We made our way over to Norway on the ferry from Newcastle and drove up to the Arctic Circle. On the way back, Dad had arranged for us to travel on the coastal steamer from Trondheim to Bergen.
When the Wilsons arrived in Trondheim, they were asked to park on the quayside on what looked like a big fishing net. ‘We all climbed out of the camper and suddenly this huge crane came over and up into the air it went! Luckily, Dad managed to get his camera out and we got the photo of it being hoisted up. We had four or five days of what felt like luxury on the steamer, seeing Norway from the sea while the campervan sat on the deck.’
1969 Don’t breathe! Winched onto the steamer in Norway
Checking the Volkswagen’s logbook, Robin reveals the holiday took in around 2500 miles over nearly three weeks. He says, ‘It was a lot of driving, but the old van never missed a beat.
The Wilsons’ Volkswagen was usually parked up over the winter. ‘My older sister and I would wash it at the end of the summer and polish it before putting it away in the shed. We were lucky to have an old farmyard near the house to store it in over the winter months, so it’s always lived indoors. When I was finally legally allowed to drive it, I built a land yacht with some friends, and in 1969 we took it up to North Wales in the snow. We ended up driving it onto Black Rock Sands near Porthmadog on the beach.
1982 Breakfast at Loch Lomond in Scotland
Mindful care has kept this VW’s originality
Robin’s brother had already lectured him that if he ever drove it on the beach, or by the sea or on salt/ salty roads, to always hose it off carefully underneath, ‘I did that as soon as I got back. I think that sort of care has helped to look after it all its life. It’s never had any welding and it still doesn’t need any now. The interior – all the camping kit, the curtains, the seats and even the cups and other bits and bobs are all as what came with the van. The only thing that we had to change was the original washing up bowl because that had become brittle with age.
‘I’d more or less taken over ownership of the camper from when it was about two weeks old, even though I wasn’t old enough to drive then. When Dad died, my brother and sister both agreed that I should be the one to look after it. In 1985, I paid £1000 for my share and took custody of it.
Yes, there’s even a wardrobe, but best travel light
‘Amazingly, the bodywork and paint are still all original. It’s got some stone chips and it is a bit faded, and the bumpers and wheels were repainted about 20 years ago when my son started using it, but you can only have original paint once. My son asked me if he could paint a surf scene on the side of it, and I said, “Over my dead body!” He’s old enough now to know better. Three of the wheel hub caps are still the originals, too, as are the number plates that were originally from the supplying dealer.
‘We did have to replace the original engine around the time my father died. We had our first daughter by then, and our son was on the way, and the van had been sitting unused in the shed for a couple of years. We took it to Wales, and it was more gutless than usual, so I took it to a friend who was a VW expert in Redditch and looked after it for us. He discovered it had no compression on two cylinders.
'We were booked to go to France in eight days’ time, so he didn’t have the time to rebuild it. He said he could get me a replacement 1500cc unit for £500, and that for an extra £100, we could upgrade to a 1600cc, so we paid the extra £100. Once fitted, off to France we went with significantly more power.
‘In my heart of hearts, I really hope my family takes it on and continues to enjoy it’
It’s now 20,000 miles into that ‘new’ engine. ‘Looking back, I wish I’d kept the original engine, but at the time I needed to chop it in for a core exchange,’ Robin says. ‘It has still got the original gearbox, though, and is running the factory reduction boxes that everyone does away with, and something I’ve never seen on any other VW, a governor on the carburettor. This probably helped prolong the engines’ lives because I don’t over-rev it.’
1977 At the Isle of Man TT races
The camper has now covered 74,000 miles and every single petrol fill-up throughout its entire life has been recorded in the logbook: date, place, mileage, gallons added (litres from 1982), and since the late Eighties, Robin explains that fuel cost has usually been recorded, too. ‘Usually, any servicing and repairs needed have also been noted. Whenever trusted friends have borrowed the van, they have been under strict instructions to record all fill-ups in the logbook, and obviously to take care of it, but all without being over-precious about it.
Radio blanking plate a feature of transitional-year T2a dashboards
Robin explains that the family joined the Split Screen Van Club in the Nineties. ‘We did the London to Brighton run in 1999, camping by Alexandra Palace then queuing up for the run the next morning. I remember a chap in the queue next to us looking across into our van and asking, “Where did you get that radio blanking panel?” I said, “What do you mean?” Once I learned the white panel in the middle of the dashboard was called a blanking panel and could be removed, it took a while to explain to the chap it came with the van and has always been there.
1999 Outside BMW’s HQ in Munich
‘While this chap still struggled to believe me, I tried to understand what was so unusual about it, and my son probably thought we were both mad!’ says Robin. ‘Showing the chap the logbook helped establish the credibility of my story.’ What is so rare about this seemingly small part? This plate is desirable among enthusiasts, because 1967 Type 2s were one-year-only transitional models, introduced before the arrival of the ‘T2b’, ‘Bay Window’ versions for the 1968 model year. These final split screen ‘T2a’ Volkswagen vans were fitted with a slightly different dashboard from earlier versions.
2016 Family camping in Cornwall
The original 1967 marketing and sales brochure for the Devon campervan states that, ‘A hardworking Devon motor caravan earns its holidays in the sun’, and the Wilson family’s ethos has always reflected this in that their Volkswagen is something to be used, respected, kept clean and enjoyed.
‘It’s never been regarded as something too fragile to allow young children to enjoy climbing over the back cushions, to swing between the bunk beds, or too precious to drive down a rough narrow track between hedges that might lightly scratch the paintwork, if that’s what’s needed to reach a nice, secluded camping place,’ says Robin.
‘Along with family camping, it’s been used for the occasional bit of local furniture moving or people carrying in between, and I hope it can continue to serve future generations in this way, to be enjoyed and admired for what it was intended to be – a family camper.
Original engine replaced by 1.6-litre unit
‘I now have five grandchildren, two of which live near us. They all absolutely love it. My son would love to take it over to Australia where he now lives with his three children, but there’s no way it will head over there because it’s too expensive to ship it. My daughter’s children also love it, but don’t want the responsibility of looking after it, so I’m having a bit of a crisis over what to do with it.
‘I’d love for them to take it on, but don’t want to pressure them, so I’ve made it known to the Split Screen Van Club that if the right sort of family could be found to take it on – and not change it – I could sadly let it go, but in my heart of hearts, I really hope my family takes it on and continues to enjoy it.’
Everything including the kitchen sink – all original, too
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