VI’mthinking
somethinglikethis
wouldmakea cool
dailydriverandgive
meenoughspaceto
haula loadof junk
around.However,I
couldn’tgetmyhead
roundthefactthishas
over200,000onthe
clock.Proofthatit’s
(fairly)reliablethough.NEXT
ISSUE
ONSALE13.0 6.
ames eene,
Editor6 CAMPER&BUSEDITOR’S COMMENT
Ahoy-hoy
Is it time to usher in the modern era of Transporter, or can they all just do one?
O
kay, so by now you will have seen
there’s a water-cooled Van in this issue.
If you’re still with us, excellent, thank
you, now tell us what do you make of it?
We haven’t featured a T4 or T5 in
Camper&Bus for a number of years - heck
there wasn’t even a T6 last time we did, that’s
how long ago it was - but they’re something
the powers that be want us to include and
that’s fi ne, because when the magazine fi rst
started its remit was to cover every generation
of VW Transporter - from the fi rst to the very
last - and that’s something we did pretty well
if you don’t mind us saying.
However, with the growing demand for
water-cooled Transporters we decided to
launch VW-t, a magazine entirely dedicated
to the blighters and so all of the modern stuff
we had earmarked for C&B suddenly found
a new home elsewhere. Maybe we became
a little blinkered to the water-cooled sceneand focused too much on Splits and Bays? Or
maybe you think we’re wasting valuable space
featuring stuff you have no interest in? We’d
genuinely love to hear your thoughts on the
matter, so please do email in with them.
Even if you think these are just Trevved up
builders hacks, you have to admit the one we
chose to feature this month is interesting. It
was bought for next to nothing as a plain Jane
Panel Van and was used and abused by every
man, woman and child in the offi ce before the
former editor of VW-t, our Jimbo Wallace got
his paws on it and showed it some love. Jimbo
is a water-cooled VW man at heart, so came at
things from a different way to most of us air-
cooled peeps. We’re obsessed with having the
fi rst and oldest of everything, but he gave the
front end a face-lift to give it a more modern
appearance. Engines? We’re mostly happy if
they just get us to our destination without
conking out, but Jimbo fi tted an upgradedturbo and inter-cooler. Side windows were
added, Jimbo banished the unsightly wheel
arch gap and he fi tted some fancy rims.
Pretty much everything Jimbo added or
carried out was done at weekends, either at
friends or outside his house (no garage) so
he was able to go about his business whilst
working his magic on the Van.
It was also built on a budget so the entire
project cost less than a lot of air-cooled
owners spend on bodywork alone. And that’s
why we featured it. It’s inspiring and thought
provoking. I’ll hold my hand up and confess to
be actively looking for
a T5 or T6 as my daily
driver. I don’t think I
could bring myself to
sell my Bay, but I can
really see the appeal of
owning one. There, I’ve
said it. How about you?