TheSamba.com :: View topic

Tue Oct 18, 2022 3:34 pm

Hey all, I’d like your help. Back in 1960, my family took a steamship from Quebec to Rotterdam, then took a train to Westfalia in Wiedenbrück and picked up our 60 camper on euro delivery.

Our Westie was something special, as it wasn’t a standard Westie. It was a 23 window ragtop that had the bench seats removed (and shipped home to our local VW in the back of a cargo van) and had temporary camping stuff inside.

This was comprised of a “kitchen unit” with a fold-out table that slid in crossways behind the front bench seat and a wardrobe unit that slid in on top of the engine area. The rear seat was an L shaped affair that went across the back and along the driver’s side, the forward mounting points being a shelf in the kitchen unit. The backs of both the side and back seat came off and made a full-width bed by being similarly placed on the shelf in the kitchen unit.

Like most Westies (I think) the back of the front seat swung up and attached via straps to attachment points above the front doors to form a bunk bed up front. My spot was the top bunk when we set up the tent, my older brothers slept up front when we didn’t and my little brother and I slept in back with my parents. (Yeah. 6 of us. 4 months across Europe and coast to coast, border to border when we got back to the states!)

Here’s the deal: I’ve NEVER seen another bus like this. And despite scouring the internet for years, never even seen a picture of such a camper. Does anyone have any information about one? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 3:40 pm

dlearl476 wrote: Hey all, I’d like your help. Back in 1960, my family took a steamship from Quebec to Rotterdam, then took a train to Westfalia in Wiedenbrück and picked up our 60 camper on euro delivery.

Our Westie was something special, as it wasn’t a standard Westie. It was a 23 window ragtop that had the bench seat removed (and shipped home to our local VW in the back of a cargo van) and had temporary camping stuff inside.

This was comprised of a “kitchen unit” with a fold-out table that slid in crossways behind the front bench seat and a wardrobe unit that slid in on top of the engine area. The rear seat was an L shaped affair that went across the back and along the driver’s side, the forward mounting points being a shelf in the kitchen unit. The backs of both the side and back seat came off and made a full-width bed by being similarly placed on the shelf in the kitchen unit.

Like most Westies (I think) the back of the front seat swung up and attached via straps to attachment points above the front doors to form a bunk bed up front. My spot was the top bunk when we set up the tent, my older brothers slept up front when we didn’t and my little brother and I slept in back with my parents. (Yeah. 6 of us. 4 months across Europe and coast to coast, border to border when we got back to the states!)

Here’s the deal: I’ve NEVER seen another bus like this. And despite scouring the internet for years, never even seen a picture of such a camper. Does anyone have any information about one? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Lind and others will likely chime in but yes, you could order your bus tourist delivery and go pick it up, and yes westfalia would convert your bus as well as convert a deluxe or a panel if you paid for it. Not a lot of documentation, so if you found pictures of the bus it would be great.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:00 pm

Looking on the Westphalia site brought me the term “Camping Box.”
Ours was similar to this only our kitchen unit was thinner, didn’t have a built in stove and propane storage (cooked on a portable gas stove on the fold out table on the door side of the kitchen unit) and didn’t have a dinette table.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westfalia_Campingbox_8.jpg

I kind of feel this was home made, but I don’t read German. Also, our seat back were hard-backed and formed a bed by fitting side by side with the driver’s side seat cushion between the rear seat and the shelf in the kitchen unit.

Also, no picture of the wardrobe unit that went behind the rear seat over the engine compartment.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 5:06 pm

I would love to see some photos if you have some.

Was the interior like this?

Tue Oct 18, 2022 5:21 pm

campingbox wrote: I would love to see some photos if you have some.

Was the interior like this?

Yes, kinda. Our kitchen unit was thinner IIRC. About the width of the cutout in that one, (It's been 50 years!) and didn't have a fold up table. The "table" on ours was just a little thing on the end, like a normal westie, that was big enough to fit a Coleman-sized white gas stove.

That's exactly what our wardrobe unit looked like. 3 sections with roll top fronts.

Only we had a 23 Window Samba not a Kombi.

ps: Pictures are kind of a sore point. When my dad died, our pack rat older brother raided his 60 years of slides and rat-holed them in his basement somewhere and he can't find them. Hundreds of pictures of our travels all though Europe and the US.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 5:34 pm

This is the other interior they offered at that time, but I’ve never seen or heard of this style layout having the roll top cabinet in back.

There are also some one off westy oddities that have survived, so if your memory is correct it might have been a custom build that has yet to be discovered.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 6:31 pm

Erik G wrote: dlearl476 wrote: Hey all, I’d like your help. Back in 1960, my family took a steamship from Quebec to Rotterdam, then took a train to Westfalia in Wiedenbrück and picked up our 60 camper on euro delivery.

Our Westie was something special, as it wasn’t a standard Westie. It was a 23 window ragtop that had the bench seat removed (and shipped home to our local VW in the back of a cargo van) and had temporary camping stuff inside.

This was comprised of a “kitchen unit” with a fold-out table that slid in crossways behind the front bench seat and a wardrobe unit that slid in on top of the engine area. The rear seat was an L shaped affair that went across the back and along the driver’s side, the forward mounting points being a shelf in the kitchen unit. The backs of both the side and back seat came off and made a full-width bed by being similarly placed on the shelf in the kitchen unit.

Like most Westies (I think) the back of the front seat swung up and attached via straps to attachment points above the front doors to form a bunk bed up front. My spot was the top bunk when we set up the tent, my older brothers slept up front when we didn’t and my little brother and I slept in back with my parents. (Yeah. 6 of us. 4 months across Europe and coast to coast, border to border when we got back to the states!)

Here’s the deal: I’ve NEVER seen another bus like this. And despite scouring the internet for years, never even seen a picture of such a camper. Does anyone have any information about one? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Lind and others will likely chime in but yes, you could order your bus tourist delivery and go pick it up, and yes westfalia would convert your bus as well as convert a deluxe or a panel if you paid for it. Not a lot of documentation, so if you found pictures of the bus it would be great.

My google-fu us weak. I should have done some more searching before I posted. There's quite a bit of info here that wasn't last I looked. (15 years ago?)

I also leaned on the superior memory of my older brother for some facts. ( He was 15 in 1960, I was 8 ) Apparently, our local VW dealer hipped my dad to a little insider info: If you did a European delivery through your US dealer, you had to pay sales tax/import duty on the full price. OTOH, if you walked into a VW dealer in Germany and bought a car, you paid on 50% of the purchase price when you shipped it home as a "used car-incidental purchase."
So we went to a dealer in Hanover, who informed my dad that it would take 6 months to get a Westie, but he could buy the camper kit and they could install it in a week. So that's what he did, and how we ended up with a 23 Window camper.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 6:41 pm

campingbox wrote: This is the other interior they offered at that time, but I’ve never seen or heard of this style layout having the roll top cabinet in back.

There are also some one off westy oddities that have survived, so if your memory is correct it might have been a custom build that has yet to be discovered. Yeah, that's pretty much standard Westie with the F/R facing seats and the built in wardrobe on the left AFAIK. Maybe our kitchen unit was that wide, but I don't remember a cutout like that and we definitely didn't have that fold up table inside.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 8:36 pm

I’m sure some of you remember Nicks 62 documented panel with a one off camping interior done by Westfalia and designed in part by the owner that had custom cabinets in the cargo area with two spring frames making up the bed and regular SO33 closet and rear cabinets along with the hanging shaving cabinet. Maybe the guys dad also sketched up his own design making it a one off?
It would be cool to see pix of this 23.

Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:18 pm

What a dream! My father took me camping in our 63’Devon when I was young but didn’t travel half way across the world for a trip like that-epic! Quite the undertaking back then I’m sure.
My Westy was delivered under the tourist delivery program so this is pretty interesting to me and I’m sure others in here so if you have time to tell us any stories of the trip we’d love to hear them.

I hope you can find photos but do you have any details on the bus? Sometimes they can be tracked to see if it survived with the chassis/registration number.

Wed Oct 19, 2022 6:24 am

dlearl476 wrote: Yeah, that's pretty much standard Westie with the F/R facing seats and the built in wardrobe on the left AFAIK. Maybe our kitchen unit was that wide, but I don't remember a cutout like that and we definitely didn't have that fold up table inside.

The cutout is to access the cargo door handle so if the cabinet was that wide it would have needed it.

The table can be taken out with no tools and get pitched in a dumpster in two seconds flat. There would be two small brackets remaining but they could be unscrewed easily.

The campingbox cabinet offers no room for a table on the door or the side of the cabinet.

They did offer a wardrobe cabinet on the rear cargo door with a small flip out table.

Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:30 am

dlearl476 wrote: Yeah, that's pretty much standard Westie with the F/R facing seats.....
Westfalia offered a number of different camper kits. Not all at one time, but generally there were a few options available at any time.

Here is a samba thread described different campers, including Westy campers: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=99345

Of course, if you find any pics from back in the day, we'd love to see them.
Do you remember what colour it was painted?
Do you remember what colour curtains?
What about the cushions?
Did you have a striped awning/tent that attached to the bus?

Were the interior panels the same colour as this microbus that had a westy kit installed back in the day? Did it have wood door panels?

Quote: The "table" on ours was just a little thing on the end, like a normal westie, that was big enough to fit a Coleman-sized white gas stove.
Was this table attached to a side door?
So it did not have a buildt-in cooker?

Thu Oct 20, 2022 4:12 pm

Clara wrote: dlearl476 wrote: Yeah, that's pretty much standard Westie with the F/R facing seats.....
Westfalia offered a number of different camper kits. Not all at one time, but generally there were a few options available at any time.

Here is a samba thread described different campers, including Westy campers: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=99345

Of course, if you find any pics from back in the day, we'd love to see them.
Do you remember what colour it was painted?
Do you remember what colour curtains?
What about the cushions?
Did you have a striped awning/tent that attached to the bus?

Were the interior panels the same colour as this microbus that had a westy kit installed back in the day? Did it have wood door panels?

Quote: The "table" on ours was just a little thing on the end, like a normal westie, that was big enough to fit a Coleman-sized white gas stove.
Was this table attached to a side door?
So it did not have a buildt-in cooker?

I would guess the interior was similar to the above, likely a late campingbox. Westfalia would do custom combinations of older and newer interiors as well, especially for 'drive in' customers. Is there any chance you are remembering the depth of the cabinet behind the front seat incorrectly?

Wed Nov 02, 2022 5:44 pm

[quote="Clara"] dlearl476 wrote:

Of course, if you find any pics from back in the day, we'd love to see them.
Do you remember what colour it was painted?
Do you remember what colour curtains?
What about the cushions?
Did you have a striped awning/tent that attached to the bus?

Were the interior panels the same colour as this microbus that had a westy kit installed back in the day? Did it have wood door panels?

So it did not have a buildt-in cooker?

Ours was just like this. It had the standard grey panels in the interior. The seats for the camper were red/grey/black tartan and we had the matching orange/white stripped "long tent." Curtains I don’t remember. I’ll ask my brother. It also had a porta potty that was a galvanized bucket with a wood seat and top. No built in stove, and I’m 90% certain the fold up table was on the slide-in cabinet, not the door.

Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:34 pm

Oh man, I saw this and about sh*t myself thinking I’d found our bus! Then I realized it wasn’t a 23 window. Ours was just like this, except 23 windows, sunroof, roof rack, tent, and the roll-top wardrobe in back.

Notice the standard interior panels and the armrests in back with the seats made into a bed.

campingbox wrote: Like a lot of these threads start I figured I would start a build thread to help document the history of the bus and document the repair work. I'm also hoping this thread will help keep me motivated to work on it and update.

I'm still working on tracing back the history but I believe this bus was sold new in Germany most likely to a man in the military. It had US specs and was taken to Westfalia when new to have a Westfalia campingbox kit fitted. It's the only deluxe bus I have ever seen outfitted with this style interior. I don't know much about the history from '61 through '70 but in 1970 it was boughtu by a man from Iowa who was drafted into the military and sent to Germany. He was there from '70-'71 and brought the bus back with him. In the campingbox are a few German drivers handbooks, one from '64, another from 1970. There is also a USA license plate which is green, this is probably how it was registered while it was in Germany. It was owned by this man from 1970 through 2005 when he passed, spending most of his life in Minnesota, and his widow kept the bus until September 16th, 2015 when she sold it to a local car dealer named Liberty Station. The car dealer in turn called Mike Wolfe of the American Pickers fame and sold it to him on 09.29.15. Mike took it down to Rich @ J-3 restorations in Columbia, Tn. to do a quickie wash and get it running and stopping good enough to drive onto a trailer so the bus could be sold to a happy new home.

Rich's team knocked it out quick and put it up for sale on 11/03/2015. I didn't see the ad because I was traveling to Florida for the Bulli Brigade but my buddy Jake texted me about the bus and told me I had to buy it. His enthusiasm is contagious, so Clara & I deliberated for all of about 30 seconds and I sent him an email and gave him a phone call telling Rich we wanted it. Clara's favorite model is the corner window and well with my namesake the bus seemed to fit well with the collection. A few phone calls and a lot of nervous pacing back and forth in the hotel room and a deal was secured.

Here are the photos Rich had in his ad.

Halloween bus - kinda neat

Eta: I guess all the pics weren’t in that first post. Here’s the bed deployed:

Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:36 pm

After 70 years,I memories are a little fuzzy I guess. I’m pretty sure we had a foldout table on the end of our kitchen slide in, but I could be misremembering it and confusing it with my younger brother’s 67 Westie.

Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:31 pm

dlearl476 wrote: Oh man, I saw this and about sh*t myself thinking I’d found our bus! Then I realized it wasn’t a 23 window. Ours was just like this, except 23 windows, sunroof, roof rack, tent, and the roll-top wardrobe in back.

Notice the standard interior panels and the armrests in back with the seats made into a bed.

campingbox wrote: Like a lot of these threads start I figured I would start a build thread to help document the history of the bus and document the repair work. I'm also hoping this thread will help keep me motivated to work on it and update.

I'm still working on tracing back the history but I believe this bus was sold new in Germany most likely to a man in the military. It had US specs and was taken to Westfalia when new to have a Westfalia campingbox kit fitted. It's the only deluxe bus I have ever seen outfitted with this style interior. I don't know much about the history from '61 through '70 but in 1970 it was boughtu by a man from Iowa who was drafted into the military and sent to Germany. He was there from '70-'71 and brought the bus back with him. In the campingbox are a few German drivers handbooks, one from '64, another from 1970. There is also a USA license plate which is green, this is probably how it was registered while it was in Germany. It was owned by this man from 1970 through 2005 when he passed, spending most of his life in Minnesota, and his widow kept the bus until September 16th, 2015 when she sold it to a local car dealer named Liberty Station. The car dealer in turn called Mike Wolfe of the American Pickers fame and sold it to him on 09.29.15. Mike took it down to Rich @ J-3 restorations in Columbia, Tn. to do a quickie wash and get it running and stopping good enough to drive onto a trailer so the bus could be sold to a happy new home.

Rich's team knocked it out quick and put it up for sale on 11/03/2015. I didn't see the ad because I was traveling to Florida for the Bulli Brigade but my buddy Jake texted me about the bus and told me I had to buy it. His enthusiasm is contagious, so Clara & I deliberated for all of about 30 seconds and I sent him an email and gave him a phone call telling Rich we wanted it. Clara's favorite model is the corner window and well with my namesake the bus seemed to fit well with the collection. A few phone calls and a lot of nervous pacing back and forth in the hotel room and a deal was secured.

Here are the photos Rich had in his ad.....

Eta: I guess all the pics weren’t in that first post. Here’s the bed deployed:

Did the one your family have, did it have the red drawer pulls that were kind of triangles?
Here is the thread on our 15 window campingbox:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=643606&highlight=campingbox

If the one your family had is just like it, but 23 windows, and with the tent and the roll up cabinet in the back, that is awesome! I'd love to see pics. :D :)

here is a random pic, probably 1961:

The SO-42 Westfalia (offered 1965-1967) has a fold-up table on the cargo door. I think they made about 1000x as many SO-42s as the kit in the corner window bus.
Here's an SO-42:

Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:02 pm

Thanks for posting that. It was great to see a "French fry sauce" camper in the woods! Brought back memories. Campgrounds in Europe in 1960 had coin-operated showers. And the weather was often just like your trip. We battled mold a lot in Germany and Scandinavia.

Curtains? I can’t really remember although the red seems right. Also, I don’t remember those red door pulls. But that was just like our slide in cabinet with 3 drawers.

Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:27 am

dlearl476 wrote: Thanks for posting that. It was great to see a "French fry sauce" camper in the woods! Brought back memories. Campgrounds in Europe in 1960 had coin-operated showers. And the weather was often just like your trip. We battled mold a lot in Germany and Scandinavia.

Curtains? I can’t really remember although the red seems right. Also, I don’t remember those red door pulls. But that was just like our slide in cabinet with 3 drawers.

This is normal weather in the PNW:

Since then moved to California, which is drier.

Guess I should update the thread with pics from camping this year.

Thu Jan 12, 2023 8:33 pm

Better late than never! My brother and I finally embarked on the monumental process of digitizing our family’s lifetime of slides. Here’s a couple of our Camper.

ps: these are crap. They’re actually iPad pics of the slide sitting on my iPhone screen, which I was using for a slide viewer to orient the slides I was putting into carousels to speed the digitizing process. I’ll post the actual scans after I get them done and edited.

eta: Done

pss: I think I have a “proof of concept” photo out in front of the Westfalia plant where, I assume, the folks showed us how to set up the tent, etc.