With Volkswagen Australia recently launching it's latest upgrade of the commercial range including Multivan, Transporter and Caravelle it took my mind back to the days when these were simply called `Kombis'. Our family had a close connection with VW with my late father, Roy purchasing the first VW Kombi in Adelaide in 1953.
At the time we were living in Moculta in the Barossa Valley and the van was fitted with seats as we had grandma and grandpa living with us in addition to our family of five. It soon took on another use as we moved to Melbourne and the rest of the family - mum and the three kids - took the train over while dad loaded the van with our worldy possessions and drove to Melbourne.
So the van fulfilled two roles: Transporter and Multivan. When we settled into Melbourne for some reason the van was sold and dad bought a used black Beetle ... inspired no doubt by his experience with the Kombi, which he always said was a great car to drive. It was, of course, a splitter, had a split windscreen and windows down either side. Unfortunately five people do not fit easily into a Beetle and after one cramped trip back to Adelaide the Beetle went and was replaced by an FJ Holden.
After a succession of three Holdens in my early years – an EH, HK Premier 307, and a Bathurst 327 Monaro – believe it or not I sold the Monaro and bought a 1968 Kombi. Why, you may ask, did I sell the Monaro? In short stupidity – I thought and, we were told - the world was running out of oil back in 1974. By the way can someone tell Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear – one of my favourite TV shows – it's not pronounced `BaRthurst'. There's no bloody R in there that I can see. Bathurst.
This Kombi had a story to tell also. It was owned by the MMFB, better known as the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade and was used as their laundry van. So it was a shell, with windows and you could step from the cabin into the cargo area. Just right to be converted to a camper. In it's working life the van carried the firemen's dirty linen to the laundry and then collected it later on.
When the van came up for auction there was one anxious bidder: not yours truly, but the father of one of the fireman – who knew the vehicle well – and the dad, a cabinetmaker by trade, purchased the vehicle. He was a meticulous designer and perfectionist as a tradesman and built a beautiful camper inside the vehicle. We purchased the vehicle from him in 1974 and spent around $1000 having experts install a pop-up roof. They also did a great job and matched the timber veneer of the rest of the fitout.
I drove that vehicle for the next five years as my daily driver and at weekends we'd disappear up to Merrijig to see our mates the Lovicks, Jack, Lorna, Charlie, John and Kerry and park the camper on the banks of the Howqua or Delatite Rivers. We also did a couple of wine buying trips to South Australia going via Langhorne Creek and McLarenvale and coming home via the Barossa and Mildura. Plenty of storage space under the bed and in cupboards for several dozen, including a few Hill of Grace from Henschke for about $6 a bottle. True.
We even drove it to Cairns and Port Douglas while on an extended break. It was magnificent vehicle – not fast as the 1600cc engine was hardly a Porsche flat four, in fact the opposite – but a great vehicle to drive. Plenty of time to smell the roses, particularly up hills. We eventually sold the car for slightly more than we paid for it and I bought my first Nissan Patrol. We later bought another Kombi Camper – with an 1800 cc engine – but it was never the same.
Remarkably, the Germans cannot claim credit for the Kombi. That honour goes to a Dutchman, Ben Pon. Pon was a VW importer and in 1946 visited Wolfsburg to set up importation of the Type 1 – the Beetle – to Holland. In 1947 he returned to the factory and noticed a spare parts trolley. It was an improvised piece of machinery which the stock Type 1 pan as a basis. This got the Dutchman thinking and in what is little more than a doodle on April 23, 1947 he sketched his idea of an all encompassing van based on the Type 1 platform. His sketch had the driver sitting at the front over the front wheels and the engine at the rear.
Pon wanted 1500 lb (690 kg) payload capacity, but the Type 1 platform was simply not up to the job and VW devised a new, stronger platform, to lift the payload capacity. The van was powered by a 19 kW air-cooled flat four `boxer' engine. The Type 2 came in many guises: panel van without side windows or rear seats, walk-through panel van, high roof panel van, Kombi with side windows and removable rear seats, Caravelle, an upmarket mini-bus, Samba-bus the most sought after Kombi of all with skylight windows and cloth sunroof, flatbed ute or single cab, crew cab ute with extended cab and two rows of seats, Westfalia camper van or Westy. Our images were taken at a recent Gold Coast VW Festival at Parklands, including the Kombi model cars.
I must admit to being an unashamed fan of the Kombi, probably because of the good times my wife Shelly and I had traveling in the camper for all those years in and out of Melbourne. I recall vividly that wherever we drove – particularly outside the city – that fellow Kombi drivers would always flash there headlights when they saw you coming in the opposite direction. In those days Kombi Kampers were common and we must have just about worn out the headlamps. There was a true camaraderie between owners who appreciated the van as being `special' to them and the freedom it gave us all. The above VW Caravelle is the new 2010 model.
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