CAMPER&BUS 33but I got it from a lad in Spain.
“The thing is though, Panel Vans
are dark old things inside and
they’re hard to live with, especially
once you’ve owned a Samba.”
Fortunately for Mike - and no
doubt to the chagrin of the Samba
cognoscenti - help was a hand.
Help came in the form of Irv of Irv’s
Restos fame. Mike says: “Irv had a
23-window he was restoring, but it
wasn’t really a 23-window. It was
a 15-window that had the wrong
roof put on it at some point. He was
looking for the best replacement
roof panel he could fi nd for it so we
decided to make a switch.
“I dropped the ’54 off and Irv did
the chopping. It was a bit strange
handing over a perfect Bus and
going home with a butchered one.”
The new (to Mike) Samba roof
went home in the back of his T5 and
he was then ready to get his weld
on. Ah, you say. But what about the
side windows? Panel Vans don’t
come with those, do they? Of course
they don’t, so these metal sections
were purchased from Schofi elds. As
someone who fi nds welding fun,
but diffi cult to do well, we would
have assumed the task of stitching
the roof on to be a diffi cult one. Not
Mike. He says: “It was just anotherjob, but this time I was replacing
everything down to the belt line.
It’s not like I was crawling around
underneath and having to weld on
my back.”Cutting a dash
It might have been a super-solid
Bus, but the roof and side windows
weren’t the only bit of metal work
Mike needed to address. Barndoor
Panel Vans are pretty Spartan inside
and have just a single instrument
pod between the driver’s legs.
Deluxes came with a full-length
dash with three individual slots
for speedo, radio and clock. As you“It was strange handing over a perfect Bus
and going home with a butchered one”