Aircooled VW South Africa

So I've been running Classic Camper Hire for around two years now, during which time I've had around 10 kombi's and campers through my doors. I initially hired out predominantly air-cooled vehicles, and one Dormobile-style camper with a Ford V6 conversion. Well, Bay is still with me, and has proven to be my most popular and reliable camper to date. As time passed I started to move over to water-cooled conversions as the maintenance costs for burnt valves and cracked heads were mounting on the air-cooled campers - and spares for 1700, 1800 and 2000 flat motors were becoming harder to find. People just didn't drive them correctly, regardless of the advice given to them on collection - and in writing. I began to sell off the air-cooled vehicles and made a decent profit on most sales - I realised that a combination of hiring and sales was the way to make the business sustainable. My approach is to continue to buy in solid campers when I can find them, and to upgrade the vehicles in the fleet when possible and then sell the excess stock.

At present I have three campers in the hire fleet, Bay, the '71 Dormobile-style camper, Daisy, a '71 Westy, and Villa, a '79 Autovilla. They are all fitted with Ford 3L V6 conversions. These are also the three campers I most enjoy driving of all the vehicles I have bought and fixed up over the past two years. Rentals are sufficient to cover monthly insurance and maintenance costs and provide a reasonable return on investment. It has become a sustainable business, and has of course been a big adventure with many highs and lows when it comes to my dealings with mechanical workshops and spray shops in Cape Town. But that is another story...

To see the campers visit: http://www.classiccamperhire.biz/

Thanks for this, great that it is viable. How do you handle insurance?

Insurance is through Paladin and costs around R 700 - R 850/vehicle per month depending on value, for comprehensive, including 24/7 breakdown assistance. Expensive, but they were the only insurers I could find willing to provide cover, and my broker tried hard.

And the orange westy I saw in Riviersonderend this past Sunday? Is that yours or one that you sold?

I sold the orange Westy last month Fig - I've replaced it with the '71 Blue Daisy Westy. I'll be selling off two more campers over the next few months and keeping three in the hire fleet as that is the optimal number based on the past two years of hiring. The cool thing is that I love all three of the campers I'm keeping, so I get to travel in them when they're free, and the rentals cover maintenance and offset the initial purchase price and cost of fixing them up.