There's a new bay in town..

Back in September 2012 the House of Dub / House of Dub Imports held an open day with a show and shine, this promised to be very well attended event with VW clubs from numerous counties going, so a few of us from Aylesbury also attended this great one day show.  Among us was Andy Martin and his wife Annelise who came over in Andy's split screen panel van. During the day Andy and Annelise ventured over to where Zoe and Spike (from House of Dub) had displayed their latest delivery of bay windows from the sunny west coast of America, and they spotted a very straight, very solid baby blue and white microbus with deluxe trim. This sighting ignited a small spark in both of their minds as they needed a bigger vehicle to be able to carry all the kids safely.

The rest as they say... is history!

 

 

 

5 months after first seeing this microbus at
the H.o.D. show, and only 1 day after their
first wedding anniversary, the bay was
delivered by Spike to Andy's house, now how
many women can say they got a '71
 microbus as an anniversary present!
 

House of Dub have very good contacts in
California looking for good quality bay's, and
although this licence plate shows this bay
used to reside in Oregon, it is only the next
state north.

House of Dub sold this as a non-runner to
keep the cost down for Andy, but with Andy's
experience with VW's there is nothing major
that needs doing to it. Both Annelise and
Andy have plans in their heads on how the
bay should look when finished, so between
them both it should look even better than it
does now. It just needs a bit of TLC.

Andy's and Annelise's front garden is starting
to look like a mini VW show. Andy is preparing
his spilt in preparation for a trip to Ninove
in Belgium later this year.



Cool photo, how many of you wished your
front garden looked like this?

Interior is all complete, if a little dirty, with both
microbus rear seats in place which means
Annelise can ferry the kids around safely,
and in style. It will be nice to see this bay
driving around.

Interior just needs cleaning and it's finished,
maybe get the seats recovered at some point,
but that is it... even the headlining is good.


So we have another bay in town, which I'm sure Annelise can't wait to start driving around.
I hope you both have years of fun driving around in her, can't wait for you both to come to our club meet in your own vehicles!... finally a quick shout out to House of Dub, for importing yet another very solid, very straight and reasonably priced bay window.Thanks guy's.
 

Home made cooker unit installed...

As it is pretty quite on the VW scene at the moment, mainly due to being mid winter in the UK with cold rainy days and even colder nights, and as I haven't posted any pictures of my home made cooker unit I thought I would share my photos to give my readers something to look at until the show season gets underway. When I purchased my microbus in 2011, it had a complete microbus interior... 2 rear bench seats that were sun bleached from the Californian sun and that was it. I quickly purchased a Westy interior compromising of: 3/4 rock and roll bed, overhead rear unit, side unit, table and a buddy seat. All that was missing was the sink unit. I decided that I didn't want a sink unit, but would rather have a cooker unit, so I decided to build my own.

 

 

This is how the rear of my bay looked back in
2011 after having removed the 2 rear bench
seats.

I purchased some ply to cover the bulkhead,
which I stained to a similar shade as the
original Westy interior and fitted the buddy seat.
You can see the cut-outs in the rubber matting
where the bench seats were fixed down.

Having looked at numerous bay's and Splits
throughout the previous years I had an idea
how I wanted my cooker unit to look, and work.

Now I am no carpenter, nor do I have any
fancy tools and this is my first attempt at any
type of carpentry work, so it may not be
brilliant, but it's solid and does the job it was
designed to do.

OK, it is a lot wider than I had planned, but
this is due to the width of the cooker unit, plus
the gas hose exit's from the side of the cooker
and not the rear. When I varnised the unit
it really brought out the gain of the wood.
 

The top simply lifts up, and the front panel is
hinged so it lays flat when the top panel is open.
It has a door on the base of the unit, which
allows for plenty of space for cutlery and mugs,
and of course the gas bottle.

I always liked the 'spice rack' on the original
westy interiors so I decided to make something
similar on the inside of the door to hold some
condiments. I thought I would make this from
a different wood to make it stand out

This picture shows my original design where
the front cover doesn't fold flat. This design
was top heavy so I decided to hinge the front
panel of the lid. It also shows the coco-cola
bottle opener fixed to the bulkhead

Brand new cooker unit in it's new home.
You can see the difference in gap down the
right hand side of the cooker and the unit
this is to allow for the gas hose to exit safely.

The cooker is now fully tried and tested. Here
I am cooking the bacon at last year's Beach
Buggin VW show. The unit is now decorated
in various stickers and looks as though it's
been in the bus for years.


That is my home made cooker unit, which I have to say does an excellent job. I have no experience in this sort of thing, and made it all on my patio in the garden. It may not look very classy, but it does everything I want it to do and I am very pleased with it.

February Club Meet.

To hold a club meet on a cold, dark wet February Night was maybe being a bit optimistic, but I had faith in the hard core club members, and I wasn't disappointed. Considering the time of year, the attendance was impressive. A few of our members couldn't make the meet due to work and other commitments, but even without them the variety of vehicles was varied.

 

 

The club line up, at least it had stopped
raining which meant I could get some photo's.

Newest Outcast member was James (I think,
as you know I am no good with names!) in
his T25 Westy with a high top.

This really is a nice bus, with a full Westy
interior. James also has a bay window which
hopefully we will get to see at a future club
meet sometime. Welcome to the club mate.

Stuart and his son came along in his '71 bay
with the un-mistakable chequered front and
red oxide paint.

Ellie brought her Golf (Nitro Nancy)
sorry about the poor quality of this photo
Ellie.

James and Helen came over from Thame, in
Oxfordshire in Helen's Beetle (named Fanny!)

It's always good to see James and Helen, as
it is a bit of a trek for them to get over to the
club meet.

A welcome surprise was Kevin, who  came
over in his lovely T4. This is a twin
sliding door model and is such a nice colour
in the flesh,

It was great to catch up with Kevin, and we
spent some time at the bar chatting with other
club members.

Kevin is a member of the Oxfordshire based
VW Club, OXDUBZ. It's always good when
club members visit other clubs meetings.
Hopefully we can organise a cruise over to
OXDUBZ meet in the summer months.

My bay and Stuarts bay under the lights of
the pub.

Tim had to come over in his trusty Golf due to
having a slight problem with his T25 pop top.
(Hope you get the small problem sorted mate)

A pleasant surprise was the arrival of (swiss)
Dave and Angela in their daughter Louise's 
Beetle, Brum (hope that's spelt right?)

Lovely chequered front and un-usual colour
make this Bug stand out.

'Brum' making new friends...

Quite impressive line up considering the
time of year, and the weather.

Gavin is becoming a regular at our meets in
his Baja Bug. Very distinctive paint, as you
would expect from a professional paint
sprayer!

Gavin's Baja from behind. Love those rear
tail lights.

 

My '69 bay in the club line up.


Hope to see you all next month and anyone else who would like to come along, you are all welcome. Next month we'll be arranging the cruise down to the Volksworld show on Sunday 24th March, so if you are planning to go to the show, why not cruise down with us?