Aircooled VW South Africa

Hey guys. Does anyone know the owner of this bus and perhaps have contact details?
Thanks guys

wow, that is cool..

I think that bus used to belong to East Coast Classics, the sliding door rings a bell - perhaps they will know who the current owner is ...

very rare splitty, that, sliding doors on both sides

it is sleeping in my garage in Somerset west

nice nice nice kombi man

kombiman wrote:very rare splitty, that, sliding doors on both sides

it is sleeping in my garage in Somerset west

PLEASE CHECK YOUR INBOX

Never mind your inbox, PLEASE introduce yourself, and tell us more about you and that AWESOME Bus.. Welcome to the group pal.. VERY nice..

Alan

I have been under the radar on this site for many years, and have owned the Rat bus some time, I bought it from East Coast Classics, and then had the paint job done by Burt Upton RIP, we decided to honour Vasek Polak, the main man behind Brunos Racing in the USA. He had a bus and he towed his race car with it, so i thought it would be cool to base my Rat Bus on his transporter . all the graphics were painted on and then aged.

now I am let to believe this bus is part of three in the world with sliding doors both sides, as they were build to test the doors for the Bay window busses which were arriving as a replacement for the splitties. I am let to believe the other two van's are one in London, and the other is in a yard in Zim waiting to be restored.

we are having great fun with the bus, its not everybody cup of tea, and the majority question is which colour are you going to paint it, to which I reply , that to have the rust painted on cost a fortune , and anyway rust is a colour

hope to see all of you splitty fans soon
Kombiman

kombiman wrote:I have been under the radar on this site for many years, and have owned the Rat bus some time, I bought it from East Coast Classics, and then had the paint job done by Burt Upton RIP, we decided to honour Vasek Polak, the main man behind Brunos Racing in the USA. He had a bus and he towed his race car with it, so i thought it would be cool to base my Rat Bus on his transporter . all the graphics were painted on and then aged.

now I am let to believe this bus is part of three in the world with sliding doors both sides, as they were build to test the doors for the Bay window busses which were arriving as a replacement for the splitties. I am let to believe the other two van's are one in London, and the other is in a yard in Zim waiting to be restored.

we are having great fun with the bus, its not everybody cup of tea, and the majority question is which colour are you going to paint it, to which I reply , that to have the rust painted on cost a fortune , and anyway rust is a colour

hope to see all of you splitty fans soon
Kombiman

Welcome.

VW started playing around with sliding doors in '64.

They are rare, but there are definitely more than 3 remaining.

Nifty bus.

kombiman wrote:now I am let to believe this bus is part of three in the world with sliding doors both sides, as they were build to test the doors for the Bay window busses which were arriving as a replacement for the splitties. I am let to believe the other two van's are one in London, and the other is in a yard in Zim waiting to be restored.

As Merlin said, you have been misinformed. In fact, VW first offered sliding doors as a special order on split buses as early as 1951. They were on the standard options list from 1963. Sliding door split buses are unusual, rather than rare, and double sliders obviously more so. But there are many more than three of them in the world.

Hi Kombiman...

We have been trying to track you down for a while, so Im sure Boolseye is glad to see you surfaced here.

I remember sitting in this a few years ago at the George Old car Show with Oliver and Jacques, nice bus.

But as Fig and Merlin have said, there are quite a few of these around in Europe as they could be Special Ordered. An option that was taken up more in Europe than anywhere else. I remember seeing German Bundes Post splitties with dual sliding doors, as well as newspaper and Milk delivery buses using the same option. It amongst others, allowed for delivery from the bus on both sides of the narrow roads, with out the delivery guy having to get out and walk around the bus to drop off the item on the 'other side' pavement.

I see a very cool, photo-shoot in your immediate future.... LOL!

Muds
Cape Town

Wonder how many Australian spec splits- (high air intakes), had dual sliding doors?

Dawie wrote:Wonder how many Australian spec splits- (high air intakes), had dual sliding doors?

I suspect those vents were not Oz only, as I have seen them on many buses that came out of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, including this one. I've heard of several dual slider panels from Zim.

thankyou for the feed back, what I didn't mention was that to the best of my info three was right hand drive , I am aware of more in Europe with sliding doors, but they are left hand drives.

Awesome bus.