Today is a very special day to me, as it is exactly 10 years ago that I first became a member of http://www.thesamba.com
TheSamba was my first exposure to the whole 'Forum' phenomenon, and I remember spending many late night hours (and expensive dial-up connection time) on it reading up about the whole VW scene all over the world.
The support I got after the accident I had with HW1 on Friday, November 2, 2007 from Samba members was simply amazing. To this day, the thread about the accident has no less than 64 replies and 20967 views! I want to single out Gary Holbrook from East Coast Dune Buggies in Coastal North Carolina who sent me a parcel with some parts to use in the build of HW2, including the chromed EMPI bumper I have on it at the moment - THANKS once again, Gary
Although I am not very active on the Forum side of TheSamba anymore, I save all my favourite VW pics (of which I have taken most myself) there, as an on-line database of the VW Scene in South Africa.
The very first pic I posted on TheSamba was this one of my 412 Variant which I took at Kaaimans River, near Wilderness
The Variant has been sold a long time eversince, and the bridge in the picture at Kaamains River on which the Variant is standing, is now closed to the public due to it being stucturally unsafe. Many air cooled VWs have since crossed my path, and many new friendships made due to the mutual interest in those bloody noisy, oil-leaking but gorgeous automobiles!
I've just posted my 2000th picture on TheSamba - a pic of a Maisto model '64 Samba I took in the back yard this afternoon - guess that is as close as I'll ever get to owning a Bus with windows in its roof?
Of course two and a half years after I joined TheSamba, AircooledVWSA was founded, and as they say - the rest is history
A HUGE thanks to all of you!