70 CLUB PROFILEwww.volkswagencamper.co.uk
- venture and it took a while to get
off the ground, it’s really taken off
over the past year and now has over
850 members from all around the
world. Rich finally realised he had
a success story on his hands one
week last year when he was mailing
club stickers out to several people in
the UK, and ones to Chile and New
Zealand at the same time! Despite
the fact he’s never actually added up
the numbers he reckons that around
75% of members are UK based,
maybe 15% in Europe (one member
drove his Split for 19 hours from a
small Danish island to Belgium to
meet up with the gang last year) and
the rest scattered around the world.
In terms of vehicles owned the
majority are Bays and Splits, with
T3s coming in a distant third,
which is no real surprise as there
are much less of these models still
on the roads. At the moment the
Crew is split into 3 regional groups;
London, The Midlands and Milton
Keynes, and they meet up for their
annual get together at Stonor Park- it’s about in the middle of all three
crews. However, that might have
to change from 2019 onwards as
they are about to expand with more
groups coming online in Bristol and
then Dorset.
Aside from obviously appearing
at shows across the UK, and even
into Europe, they also hold regular
meetings at the iconic Ace Cafe
in London and there is a special
event at the Ace every year for
their Birthday; September 5th if
you are interested. Rich is amazed
by how popular his little place on
the internet has become. “My FB
page for the Burlesque nights got
nothing in terms of hits compared
to my WBC page; during the peak
show season last year we were
getting 290,000 hits a week!” he
is proud to confirm. So, people are
more interested in rusty old VWs
than half naked women - what is the
world coming to? Or maybe they are
interested in the club merchandise or
the competitions and discounts that
club members can receive from all
the leading names in the VW scene.
Today’s club meeting - organised
so we could go along with our
cameras - was on a lovely sunny
day in February, and located in
some woods just outside Aylesbury;
50+ campers (a new club record)
turned up to sunbathe, the furthest
coming all the way from Poole on
the Dorset coast. It was a great- Truck mirrors and
cyclops light; classic
rat rod styling - You don’t see
many F reg Bays
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