Aircooled VW South Africa

Hi all you lovely VW people.

I'd like to introduce myself, my name is Craig and I own a 1959 11 window Kombi that was sent from West Germany to South Africa in late 58.

I bought the van 2 years ago after it had gone through a light restoration (mainly caked in filler) and me being me i've decided to take it apart after a year of driving it. I wanted to make sure it had a full restoration done properly.

One thing led to another and i've ended up replacing the following:

Front clip, inner and outer valance, the headlight support bowl and bowls, both dog legs, NS arch, cab floor, complete bulkhead, headliner teeth, both cargo floors, log heater tube, inner gutter down one side, cargo door lower frames and half skins, inner and outer sills, two jacking points and four outriggers, some ends of I beams, centre chassis sections, both rear corners, gas and battery trays, engine seal runners, splash plates, engine lid, engine lid hinge panel, top engine seal, rear hatch half skin, OS roof repair... as well as putting back all original features.

The bus is an odd one really as even though it left the factory in March 1959 it appears to have ribbed bumpers, a flat cargo door and the weirdest i've come across is the flat engine lid with centre brake light, even though it had 59 rear lights/brake lights either side of it. Th engine lid I removed was what would have been on a 59 but I found all the wiring loom tucked away in the engine lid hinge panel for it.

So here she is...

Bud....we need more pics

I literally have thousands, what would you like pics of and i'll add them.

Discovered semaphores had been welded up as well as a bolt put through the the B pillar for seat belts.

CraigN!

Howzit Craig

And welcome to ACVWSA. Do you have any pics of what it looked like when you first purchased it ? Where about did it come from in ZA ? What was its original colour, Dove Blue ? There are a few '59 owners on this forum

The centre brake light, ribbed bumpers, etc are interesting ... but I've seen this on another '59 bus here

Good luck with the restoration !!!

Great restoration project, looking forward to the end result. Seems like a lot of effort and love going into this one.

jolas wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:16 pm Howzit Craig

And welcome to ACVWSA. Do you have any pics of what it looked like when you first purchased it ? Where about did it come from in ZA ? What was its original colour, Dove Blue ? There are a few '59 owners on this forum

The centre brake light, ribbed bumpers, etc are interesting ... but I've seen this on another '59 bus here

Good luck with the restoration !!!

Hey buddy, thanks for the welcome.

I'm the second UK owner of this bus, I believe it came over to the UK around 2006 (I post some pics I got from the owner after this). I'm not sure how he got hold of the bus, he wasn't the sort of guy who wanted to tell me all that as it was a reluctant sale after a divorce.

The bus was originally Mango Green and Seagull Grey. It had original safari windows and 6 pop outs. I believe it as bought and used as a taxi.

Believe it or not, before all that work this is what the bus looked like when I bought it. It looked like a great bus and I purchased for around £20K based on that. It soon became apparent that it was hiding a lot of issues that most people would just forget and deal with but for me no no no... Heres some photos.
















I've literally gone through the bus with a fine tooth comb and replaced all the original features. Although I won't keep it Mango, I will be going for L31 Dove Blue and L90D Cream which is a bay colour.

This is the colour scheme the bus will finally be, but with crows steels.

Cool, thanks for the pics. If it landed in the UK from ZA with the bumpers in the pics, then those bumpers will more than likely have come off a 1975 "Fleetline" Kombi (or panelvan or single cab)