Bay Window photos from the past - 70's era photos

[Blue Baron]

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We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[cdennisg]

[NASkeet]

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[notchboy]

I see Eucalyptus trees, no? RHD, SA or Australia.
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[NASkeet]

[Blue Baron]

_________________
We are striving for perfection, to make our cars run forever, if possible.

Heinz Nordhoff

[NASkeet]

[NASkeet]

[NASkeet]

[NASkeet]

Photographs from the 1970s & 1980s of my family's British specification, 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 Westfalia Continental motor-caravan on summer touring holidays in continental Europe

1975 - The Netherlands, Germany & Luxemburg

Our then newly purchased, second-hand 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 Westfalia Continental and the VW 1300 Type 1 Beetle belonging to our Dutch friends Hennie & Arthur Borghoff, outside their home in Apeldoorn, before we all departed for our 1975 summer holiday in Ettlebrück, Luxemburg.

I believe this photograph was also taken during our 1975 summer holiday, either in The Netherlands, Germany or Luxemburg. From late-1976 onward when we toured western Scotland, where we had the Minnow Fish carburettor retro-fitted in Lochgilphead during our 1976 summer holiday (no photographs!), the left-hand lower corner of the rear window, featured a National Trust for Scotland sticker, which is absent from this photograph!

https://www.nts.org.uk

The photograph features my father with Arthur Borghoff drinking tea (the preferred British beverage!) alongside a Ford Cortina Mk.2, in a car park somewhere. The Ford Cortina was one of the best-selling cars in Great Britain!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina#Mark_II_(1966–1970)

Although not visible in either of the photographs above, I had made two modest upgrades to the furniture close to the sliding door, which housed the sink and the insulated cool cabinet (i.e. "ice-box"), before we departed for our touring holiday in Luxemburg.

These upgrades took the form of some hinged metal stays and a supplementary cutlery drawer which I made myself in the SEEVIC - South East Essex Sixth Form College woodwork workshop, during late-June or early-July 1975, after completing my GCE "A" Level examinations, before enrolling at Chelsea College, University of London in October 1975

1979 Aix Les Bains, Southern France

Seen from left to right, this is my father, myself and my sixth-form college friend Tony (all slender, British adult males - don't forget that food rationing which started in 1940 during WW2, didn't end until 14 years later in 1954!), preparing for lunch, during our summer holiday 1979, as indicated by the presence of the home-made roof-rack cover.

My mother, out of sight, was the one taking the photograph using a Kodak Instamatic camera, with non-35 mm format colour-reversal film

My father (sitting on the towel) and my sixth-form college friend Tony - Anthony Marcus Clive Owers [who played a guitar, was sometimes known as "Hank", named after Hank Marvin of "The Shadows", who were associated with Cliff Richard] sitting in the camping chair, sunbathing at the campsite in Aix Les Bains in southern France in 1979.

In those days, I found it relatively easy to raise the elevating roof on my own, but by the early-1990s, I was finding it more difficult, so I contrived to retro-fit a pair of cheap second-hand gas struts, salvaged from the rear hatch of a Volvo 300-Series hatchback, using some custom-made brackets I fabricated from some more off-cuts of duralumin, that I had previously salvaged from the scrap bins at Cranfield.

This photograph of me on a racing bicycle (borrowed from Dutch friend Arthur Borghoff who was a cycle enthusiast) at the age of 23½ in 1979 when we were camping in Aix Les Bains, features a road direction sign for Le Colombier, which was part of one of the race stages with a steep hill section, on one of the International "Tour de France" cycle races.

That was in the days when I had a lot more hair, had a 28 inch waist and weighed 8½ stone (i.e. 8 stone 7 pounds or 119 pounds in USA parlance!).

After the 1979 holiday in Aix Les Bains, we next went to Switzerland in 1980, but took no photographs of the VW Type 2 there.

In September 1981, after I had just completed my two-year M,Sc. at Cranfield, we had a two-centre holiday in North America, first spending a few days in Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, with two retired Canadian Army nurses we had met in Ethiopia in 1972, followed by couple of weeks in southern California, USA, in a hired Ford Honey RV.

The next motor-caravanning holiday in the VW Type 2, was in Sweden, Norway & Denmark, during the summer of 1982.

1982 - Norway, Sweden & Denmark

Swedish & Danish car stickers

Whilst touring Sweden in 1982, the brass float of our Minnow Fish carburettor suffered a leak, causing the carburettor to flood, necessitating recovery from a petrol filling station roughly midway between Västervick and Kalmar, to a workshop in Kalmer, which was still open until quite late in the evening; where the float was drilled, drained and resealed with solder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Västervik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar

https://gb.kompass.com/c/minnow-fish-carburettors-ltd/gb55131811/

https://www.volkswagenownersclub.com/threads/minnow-fish-carb.128944/

https://www.historicvws.org.uk/minnowfishcarbs

https://forums.autosport.com/topic/201344-the-minnow-fish-carb-is-back-and-it-is-still-very-odd/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reece_Fish_Carburettor

At one of the campsites in Sweden, a red squirrel (smaller & cuter than the North American grey squirrel) came to perform a roadworthiness inspection on our 4~5 year old Michelin XZX 185 SR14 Reinforced radial-ply tyres and admire the original factory-fitted steel wheels that I had repainted with silver-grey, hammered-finish paint, from Finnigan's Speciality Paints Ltd, which did an excellent job of effectively camouflaging underlying blemishes.

https://www.hammerite.co.uk

https://www.hammerite.co.uk/product/direct-to-rust-metal-paint-hammered-finish/

You might also have noted the North American specification, Hella rear side-marker lights which I had earlier retro-fitted to our British specification VW Type 2! I also retro-fitted North American specification, Hella front side-marker reflectors, but with hindsight I wished I had been aware that the part number I was given, was for a side-marker reflector base rather than a side-marker light base.

Also retro-fitted, is a BNC, through-bulkhead male connector with splash-resistant cover, which was the only, small & neat connector I could find, to provide a low-power, 12V DC power supply to the 8W fluorescent strip light in our annexe tent.

Another item of potential interest are the genuine 1968~79 VW Type 2, accessory rear mad flaps (textile-reinforced black rubber, with embossed white Wolfsburg crest). Sadly, they were NOT supplied with mounting brackets, so I fabricated some myself, using off-cuts of duralumin (a tough, corrosion-resistant aluminium alloy) salvaged from the scrap-bins at Cranfield.

Rear mud-flaps of identical style to those retro-fitted to my family's 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 Westfalia Continental in 1981

This is a close-up of the Swedish red squirrel (undercover Swedish roadworthiness inspector) that was inspecting the 4~5 year old Michelin XZX 185 SR14 Reinforced radial-ply tyres. At the time I took the photograph, I was hiding in the annexe tent, and substituted a telephoto lens onto my circa 1978 Olympus OM2 SLR camera.

1983 - Austria via France & Liechtenstein

The following year, during the very hot summer of 1983, we had a touring holiday in Austria.

Austrian car sticker

I cannot remember where the first of these photographs was taken, but it is likely to have been one of the main routes through Germany or Austria.

The second photograph, was certainly taken in Austria, at one of the large laybys cum rest areas (including free public toilets) with picnic tables, off one of the main dual-carriage ways (almost two-lane motorway standard) from west to east through central Austria. Note the surrounding mountains which still had snow on the peaks, even in mid-summer!

The third photograph was taken just outside the church yard, in the small town or village called Stams, where we camped overnight. The following day, at the local post office, I was able to cash one of my special Girobank [a bank associated with the British post office] postcheques, upto a maximum specified threshold, in the local currency which was then Austrian schillings (these days it is Euros!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stams

Unlike banks, post offices in most European countries were often still open during the early evenings and at weekends, one only paid a nominal fee of £0•50 per postcheque, and one generally got a more favourable exchange rate than at banks.

After visiting Innsbrück, including the unusual Alpine Zoo where we saw chamois, otters and European wild cats (closely related to the Scottish wild cats - felis silvesteris), plus various other animals, birds & fish, our next destination was the area around Wien - Vienna, but we didn't want to travel on the motorway, which would be extremely tedious and would not enable us to see the surrounding countryside or stop at intervals of our choice to engage in sightseeing etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_wildcat

Hence, we decided to take a more circuitous route which involved crossing the border into northern Italy, via the Brenner Pass and then travelling east, almost parallel to the border with Austria, before turning north again to re-cross the border reasonably close to Vienna.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Pass

This fourth picture is on the outskirts of a small town or village, at the southern end of the Brenner Pass in northern Italy. If one looks carefully, one can see our orange & white RHD 1973 VW Type 2 on the far left-hand side of the picture, about two-fifths of the way up from the bottom. One can clearly see the spare wheel mounted on the front panel and the open left-hand passenger door.

Generally speaking, we didn't like driving in cities, so elected to stay at a campsite near Laxenburg, where we could go on the local public-transport bus service into Vienna, from a bus stop just a short way from the campsite entrance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laxenburg

During that summer, the temperature in Austria was in excess of 30 degrees Celcius, and on the campsite I encountered a British family who had a problem with their 1980~83 VW 1600 Transporter T3 based motor-caravan! For some strange reason, the actuating cables for the exhaust heat exchangers, had been incorrectly fitted, so the heating system was operating at full blast all the time and could not be turned off! Fortunately, I was able to quickly diagnose the source of the problem and rectify it in just a few minutes, using a spanner I had in my emergency tool kit!

1985 - Hungary via France, southern West Germany & Austria

The following two photographs were taken in Hungary (behind the "Iron Curtain"), during our rather cold, wet & rainy, 1985 summer touring holiday; as one might have deduce from the first photograph in which my parents and Swedish university-friend Kjell B. Gestlöv [a transmission designer with Scania in Södertälje] from Cranfield student days, are clad in their wet-weather clothing on the ferry across the River Danube. For safety reasons, we were not permitted to remain in the vehicle during the river crossing!

The second photograph, was taken when we stopped to examine the field of blue flowers. I think they were cornflowers, the seeds of which when ground in a mill, are used as a thickener for gravy etc.

We covered a substantial proportion of Hungary, to within about 20 km of the Ukrainian border. Owing to the miserable weather, we shortened our Holiday in Hungary, but used the remaining time before our scheduled return crossing of the English Channel by Hoverlloyd, Seaspeed or Hoverspeed (an amalgamation of Hoverlloyd & Seaspeed), Mountbatten Class, SRN-4 hovercraft (carried passengers, cars, vans, trailer-caravans, motor-caravans, lorries & coaches), to visit our Dutch friends Hennie & Arthur Borghoff in ether Apeldoorn, Epe or Vaassen in The Netherlands; they having moved once or twice since 1975.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspeed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverlloyd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoverspeed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeldoorn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epe,_Netherlands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaassen

I still have a few spare Hoverspeed GB stickers, which are probably quite rare now, but GB stickers were super ceded by UK stickers nearly two years ago, so they are just mementos now! When we booked a cross-channel ferry, took out AA 5* travel insurance or obtained an overseas extension cover for our motor-insurance, we routinely received a GB sticker bearing the company logo with our documents, so consequently I still have a few spare.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58734265

Just in case, some people didn't recognise what GB stood for, there were were also versions which incorporated the British Union flag; probably one of the World's best known and most distinctive flags in existence.

Seaspeed (part of British Rail) SRN-4 hovercraft "The Princess Margaret"

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/317644579980745720/

Hoverspeed SRN-4 hovercraft

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/317644579980745725/

1987 - Czechoslovakia via France & West Germany

When we toured Czechoslovakia (Invaded by Russian tanks in 1967, in response to Andre Dubcek's liberalisation of communism| behind the "Iron Curtain", during the "Cold War") during the summer of 1987, we had to be especially careful about what we photographed and where, so whilst there I took very few photographs of anything and none of our VW Type 2!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czechoslovakia

Although by then our 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 Westfalia Continental was nearly 15 years old, it still attracted a great deal of attention from the local population, especially once we travelled east of Prague, beyond which one saw few if any cars from western Europe. As in Hungary, we travelled to within 20 km of the Ukrainian border.

In one town square, where we had parked it before going shopping for daily food provisions (that was an experience in itself!) and sight seeing. When we returned, the VW Type 2 was completely surrounded by people, uttering ooh or ah as they peered through the windows and pointed at things inside.

Although small touring trailer-caravans from neighbouring Eastern Bloc states, towed by Ladas, Skoda, Trabants or Wartburgs etc, were quite common, ours was probably the first motor-caravan they had seen and a genuine 15 year old Volkswagen, was probably regarded as the height of modern technology!

1989 - Eire - Republic of Ireland via England & Wales

Our next touring holiday, during the summer of 1989, was in in Eira - Republic of Ireland, across the Irish Sea. We would also have liked to have visited Northern Ireland, which was and still is part of the United Kingdom, but at that time, there was still significant risk of bombings & shootings by the IRA (partly funded by some misguided American citizens of Irish origin!) and other illegal para-military terrorist organisations, so one could not obtain comprehensive motor insurance of any description.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1563119.stm

https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552676

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/19...528f8ac70/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1c...the_irish/

Apart from one day, when it was particularly wet and misty / foggy, it only rained during the night (heavily, for most of the night). The following, is the are three photographs I took, in a part of Ireland known as the Ring of Kerry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Kerry

Note the unusual wedge-shaped, large rock in the second & third photograph

1992 - Southwest England

This is my family's 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 Westfalia Continental motor-caravan during the summer of 1992, on a campsite near Torrington, Devon, southwest England, together with family friends Michael & Janet Carrick, from Canvey Island, Essex, together with their Lancia Thema and large touring caravan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Torrington

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Thema

Note the absence of the Westfalia's rear-mounted roof rack, which I think I had removed in order to have the galvanised steel rails and strap-bridges refurbished.

This was the VW Type 2's last outing with the original factory-fitted VW 1600 Type 1 Beetle engine, before we laid it up for the next phase of refurbishment & further upgrades. In early-1993, I sold the original "short" engine for £200; minus ancillary equipment (i.e. clutch, cooling system, sheet-steel cover-plates, oil-cooler, fuel-pump, electrical generator - dynamo & stand, inlet manifolds, Minnow Fish carburettor, exhaust system, etc), which I sold off piecemeal over the following years.
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Regards.

Nigel A. Skeet

Independent tutor (semi-retired) of mathematics, physics, technology & engineering for secondary, tertiary, further & higher education.

Much modified, RHD 1973 VW "1600" Type 2 Westfalia Continental campervan, with the World's only decent, cross-over-arm, SWF pantograph rear-window wiper

Onetime member, plus former Technical Editor & Editor of Transporter Talk magazine
Volkswagen Type 2 Owners' Club (Great Britain)

http://www.vwt2oc.net

[notchboy]

Great pics and recounts of travels past Nigel! Thanks again for sharing.
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[EverettB]

[RUNKLE]

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Type 1
1950 Standard - 1959 Ragtop - 1961 Ragtop two fold - 1964 Sunroof

Type 3
1968 Squareback

[NASkeet]

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[notchboy]