Date:         Thu, 4 Jan 96 12:45:21 gmt
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Andy Erskine <a.c.erskine@lut.ac.uk>
Subject:      Back from down under

Happy new year to you all. I just got back from a couple of very enjoyable
weeks in Australia visiting Ann's family, most of it spent watching cricket,
lounging about in the sun and sucking stubbies. I saw plenty of nice VWs,
although I was almost in tears at the sight of so many otherwise perfect
early bugs that had been butchered into ragtops and splitties with
glassfibre flares and wide wheels. I was hoping to rent a VW camper while I
was there but ended up with a <cringe> Toyota. It was brand spanking new,
but went back a week later with 3000 km on it and looking decidedly
secondhand. There might have been something in the agreement about NOT
driving it up river beds or in the sea but I never read the small print anyway. 
With all the slightly unusual VWs around I wanted to get something that
wouldn't be available in Europe to take back home and make my bus a little
different so one morning I did a bit of sight-seeing at a VW-only scrapyard
that had about 20 bay windows and 3 splits (not much left of them though).
The only problem was the stuff had to go home on the plane, so the roo-bars
and the nice '60 beetle had to be ruled out. I got two of those funky metal
sun visors that go above the windshield. Completely pointless in England, I
know, but they look good and might help keep the rain off. Had fun getting
these in the taxi to the airport and got some strange looks when they
appeared on the baggage corousel. One will be on my bus before long and the
other is up for grabs if anyone's interested. I also got a few small things
that would fit in my pockets like some bits of bay-window deluxe trim that
are practically impossible to find here, some jail bar brackets, some
switches and a blanking plate for the radio hole in the dash. Not much use
to me but I've only seen a couple of these before and it might come in
handy. The yard owner let me nose around and gave me a few old licence
plates as souvenirs. He must have thought that, being a pom, I had been out
in the sun too long the way I was getting excited about the piles of junk
that were lying everywhere but then I showed him some photos of our race
buggy and we got talking for drag racing for quite a while. 
I bought a few Australian VW magazines as well. It seems BIG engines (like
2.5 or 3 litres) are in favour although I'm amazed they don't have
reliability problems with these when they're fitted to campers. There is an
amazing photo in one of the ads of a bay-window kombi cornering on two
wheels. It gives the drivers name (although I can't remember it off hand)
but little other info. It seems he races it in hillclimbs, it did 14 sec 1/4
miles with the old engine and he has since fitted a 270HP turbo engine. I'll
definitely have to find out more about this bloke.

Andy E.

A.C.Erskine@lut.ac.uk