It took a while to get the old girl out for a proper weekend away. Sure, since
bringing the bus back from Aus we’ve taken her to various places in the UK
but we’ve only slept in the van once (in Brighton) and never at a Volkswagen
do. This weekend marked a milestone then.

We travelled up the motorway (M4, M24, M1, map fans) from Swindon to Redbourne
for VW Action’s BeetleMania event, a 60s-themed event that looked promising.
The weather looked like it would be sunny, the theme of the party should stop
too many chav-like attendees turning up and I knew at least a few people before
coming up there.

The weather was a slight disappointment. The sun, or what there was of it,
dipped out of sight and was replaced with a biting cold. Even with a diesel
heater at our disposal to pump warm air into the van (Eberspacher D1LC), the
night looked like it would be a cold one. Never mind, a bit of dancing about
to the old skool rave tunes helped take my mind of things (I say dance it was
more of an animated nod and foot-tap - I never can quite let go when I know
I’m being watched by the other [more sensible] half!).

Saturday day revealed that there had been a few more vehicles (and people)
arrive during the night, but it was certainly not busting at the seams; it
was not as busy show as I imagined it would be. Perhaps the cold weather was
to blame; perhaps it was the fact that there are so many VW shows to pick and
chose from (there’s another VW Action event next week); perhaps people wanted
to stay home and watch Dr Who instead?

The Fab Beatles played a blinder in the afternoon, and again in the evening.
It’s amazing how many hits they had and how you can sing along to even the
least known of their songs. The Rolling Clones (no prizes for guessing who
they were a tribute band for) were also pretty good, with ‘Mick’ doing the
whole impression - the singing, the strutting and the accent/voice (between
songs). Also making an impression on the Saturday night were fellow Swindonites
(a.k.a. Zwindon Luftschule) who were all togged up in monks’ robes and wearing
Bob Monkhouse masks, a sight that must have been slightly unnerving to some
people in various states of inebriation (and other intoxicants).

My overall feeling about BeetleMania was that it was fun, could have been
improved with a bit of sun and was lacking a little in the traders’ department.
I had hoped to pick something up to spoil Ethel with and managed to get a …
wait for it, wait for it - rubber grommet for the lock barrel on the sliding
door. Woohoo, let’s go crazy!

Another strange phenomenon was recognising other people’s VZi usernames and
feeling too conscious to say hello. Why? Because maybe that would pander to
their egos (for those that have them - that’s not a blanket statement!),
maybe they’d think that I’m some kind of fan-boy, or even find that they don’t
wanna know because they don’t know me (if this seems odd, you can blame the tone
of some VZi threads for making it feel like sometimes it’s not as inclusive
or all-embracing as it should)?

Whatever, I did feel that the ‘gang’ thing was magnified at the event, not
defused (in case you’re not sure what I’m on about, just read any of the old
posts on VZi - the whole ‘gangs are elitist’ posts come around regular as clockwork).
The little enclosures were no longer virtual, and it felt, to me at least,
that you couldn’t just join in with other gangs. Heck, I even felt like an
outsider camping up with the other Swindon lot because I hadn’t been party
to the whole ‘Monkmen’ brotherhood thing (that and the fact that I was there
with my partner while it was an all-lads-together event for the rest of them).
Then again, as has been pointed out in responses on VZi in the past, we’re
all part of a gang anyway - the VW Owners’ gang, and it’s one that I’m happy
to be part of.

Or maybe I should have written this post when I hadn’t had a bad day at work ;-p

I have no idea which VW do I’ll make it to next - there’s so much upheaval
in my life at the moment as I move house, try to get a new house with Manda
and try to sort out wedding plans, try to resolve some issues at work that
I really don’t know what’s coming up next. Whatever happens, I’ll do my best
to enjoy it. A cooler full of beer and a heater blowing over my cold tootsies
and I’ll be sorted

• View the photos from BeetleMania here

Driving a Volkswagen Camper all around Australia (or a large part of it), covering 18,500 km in the process, shipping it 14,575 km from Perth (Western Australia) to Southampton and then around the UK without a single scratch in the process. And then scraping a car in the ridiculously over-crowded car park at work. No damage to Ethel, though - just a touch of blue on the rear bumper that has already been sprayed over (like it never happened). The little KIA car that I brushed up against was also not dented - thankfully the plastic bumper gave way (or flexed) in the face of Ethel’s metallic behind, so it’ll only be a touch-up job for now. Annoying, all the same.

There’s a strange thing about owning an old VW that is unlike owning any other
car I’ve had in my past. Normally, all I want to know about a car’s past is
how many previous owners it’s had, whether it’s been involved in a bad accident
and how many miles there are on the clock. With Ethel, the number of miles
(or kilometres as it was in Aus) on the clock was almost irrelevant because
I knew that the engine was not the original one, and who knows how
many times other parts had been swapped out? However, I do find myself wanting
to know as much as possible about the van’s past.

One way of finding out the history, or at least part of the vehicle’s history,
is to request a ‘birth certificate’
from the VW Auto Museum in Germany. It may not tell you everything you
need, and it all depends on whether the microfiche for your vehicle is still
intact (not all of them are), but if you’re lucky you’ll find the following
details:

• Customer Name
• Vehicle Ident. Nr.
• Model
• Engine Number
• Color
• Extras/Options
• Date it was built
• Date it left the factory
• Country of Destination

This is printed on a nice certificate, a great little keepsake to put with
all your other vehicle documents. What I discovered about Ethel is that she
left the factory in February 1975 and was destined for Australia. So, the van
has never experienced travels through Europe (apart from being transported
to the docks) - something we’ll have to put right at some point in the future!
The other strange thing I learned is that the van was not originally Martini
Olive (the yellow colour she’s sporting to this day) but actually left the
factory in light grey, paint code L345. So, was that a primer colour of some
kind? There’s no indication in the van that it was any colour other than mustardy
yellow, so I’m going on the assumption now that the paint job was done by the
company that did the camper conversion, Sopru of Adelaide.

Slowly but durely, Ethel’s past is being revealed.