South African VW Campers

[leonniel]

Hey Guys, especially the camper enthusiast & experts

Let me start this thread off by saying that after reading the awesome auto villa find my curiosity was reignited in finding answers about my own camper,

My camper has various extra parts and some of it I haven’t figured out completely…

So I need some of your expertise …

I recently spoke to fig se below:

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leonniel wrote:

Afternoon Christian,

Hope all is well on your side... I was wondering about the camper kit I have in my kombi, your beautiful auto villa find reignited my curiosity in South African Campers,

Is there any literature or info regarding locally built VW campers, similar to Westfalia, devon & Sundial. Is there a way to know if my camper interior was a homemade job or a South African company?

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Hi Mielie

As you know, this is a particular interest of mine. However, I really don't know of any SA camper builders other than the main caravan builders (Jurgens and CI, who are now one company) and Cox campers in Cape Town, who converted lots of baywindows and T3 buses, but I don't know if they did splits. Jurgens built T2 and T3 Autovillas and CI did the CI Kemper conversion on T3 buses. And of course there were also the SA westies: the first 200 of them were full imports, after which they were locally assembled until 1973. They obviously became very expensive and in 74 VWSA offered a non-poptop camper that looks like it had Westfalia kit, but I've never seen one except in a brochure.

David Eccles's VW campers book shows one SA split camper that looks like a commercial job, but no one knows who made it.

I don't remember what your camper interior looked like. I'm sure there were a few local commercial camper converters, but I've never found anything about any of them and I've never seen a camper interior in SA that looked like it was a factory job except for split and bay westies. I have seen plenty of obvious home-made campers, some of them really well done.

I'd suggest posting pics of your interior on the forums and see if anyone recognises it or knows anything. If it was a commercial conversion, it would probably have some kind of ID or manufacturers' tag, but I've never seen anything like that on any non-westy/Jurgens/Ci camper.

Good luck with your search and please share anything you discover.
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I have taken some photos see below:

Notes/Questions

1. My bus is totally grey, I see this is common with campers, Campers come in many colours but are often a single colour!

2. The story the previous owner said was that the bus was shipped “empty” as a camper and was fitted in South Africa.

3. I have looked around the web and couldn't find anything.

Camper inside



Curtain rails




Cupboards



4 x Metal hooks front windscreen
Is this for a stretcher?



Doors,
The one door has a table and other has cupboard with wash basis, which I am trying to repair






Items I dont know how it works/goes together
I think it is a table and table leg, but dont know how it works?



Bed board holder



Pictures that make me think it might be company fitted (parts look way to complicated) for a quick home job.





Other parts



Please let me know what you think? And any info, help or suggestions are welcome...

[Terry Phillips]

I would say that one is a home built interior,picture 13 and 14 look like the pins are where you hang a hammock over the front seats for a child's bed thats my guess.

[splitfan]

I def think the pegs in front are for a stretcher , I have seen pics on the Samba and im sure it was a option on campers.... Fig ?

[leonniel]

Do you think the campers is a home built or could it be company/factory fitted?

[leonniel]

Do you think this could be a table?

[leonniel]

Another question, isn't this to specialized to be a home job?job

[jolas]

This looks like a standard South African 10 seater bus - with a DIY built in camper interior (I stand to be corrected and hope I'm wrong, and that it is a factory built camper, because it would be a unique bus indeed)

Did the previous owner buy it new ? (Does he have any old photos?)
If not, can he give you the details of the person he bought it from (worth pursuing its history) ?

Does it have any plates rivited to the air vent housing above (to the left of the drivers head) indicating weight, loads, mass, etc.
The position of the front reflectors (SA only) looks correct for a SA bus of the time (granted, they could have been fixed on at a later date)
The SA 10 seaters came out in single colours as well as 2 tone (is this the original colour, check behind the panels, under the dash, etc, etc) ?
Check the long side interior panel, is there any evidence of 4 covered up holes which would have been used to mount the fold up single "seat", mounted to the long side between the 2 bench seats (which would have been facing each other). Perhaps remove the long side panel to seat if such a mounting exists ...
All the the pop-out windows seem to be hinged - also correct for some of the SA 10 seaters


What caught my attention at Bug Jam, was the radio blank on your dash - what year model is this bus ? '67 ?

Would be nice have another closer look at your bus at leisure - when are you going to post some pics of that "other" bus of yours ?

Cheers

[sean]

Its very possible it could have been build at home too. All those cupboards and panels could have been build with basic woodworking tools.

There's nothing unique about those fittings either. They could have been bought from any hardware store.

What can be seen is that it was build quite some time ago judging by the style of the fittings and the different grades of wood.

[leonniel]

Cool, will take some photos of the plates etc... But my feeling us it us a Home Made Camper, modeled on a westy/devon/sundial, I was just intrigued because of what the previous owner said and because of the figs beautiful auto villa find...

[jolas]

My '65 split bus also had a built in interior when I bought it. It was very much a DIY job, but very practical, we did quite a bit of road tripping and camping in there
There is a split Westfalia camper running around my neck of the woods, the camping interior has a white "finish" like yours, I must have a proper look at this when I see it again and do some comparisons with the fittings on your bus anyway.

Now, about that "other" bus of yours .......

[leonniel]

This one ....

[Dawie]

Nice, looks like a Fleetline with a hole in the roof.

Just joking, is this one of the 1959 Sambas?

[Dutch_Diver]

Looks like it needs a new home

I'm willing to help with that if you want