When bus owners were skint and we swapped or gave stuff to each other and always stopped to help another air cooled driver in trouble! That’s all!
I'd like to think I don't have to look too far back to remember... I'm still earning minimum wage, still carrying spare spares in the bus for whoever might need them and up for helping anyone in trouble
I'm pretty skint usually help but when I can.I believe that you had a front windscreen courtesy of @1973daisey tlb courier services from me so surely not all is lost. BTW it came off a dove blue crew cab that I had to scrap which I really regreted.... Life moves along.
Yep and it was a life saver as the original got broken in fitting. I’ve always given stuff away too or sold it really cheap to help others as I’m sure lots of members on here can testify to, I always thought that’s what we do, but sometimes when I see parts being sold for extortionate prices on vw groups or in forums I wonder if the vibe has gone.
I gave up stopping to help years ago after supplying a distributor at the roadside and timing it up. I didn't expect remuneration but it would have been nice if they'd at least offered. Waste of half an hour. When I see one on the hard shoulder now, I put my foot down so I'm going maximum speed as I pass them giving a cheery wave. It was ok giving parts away when they were so cheap they were basically worthless but times have changed.
Yep, same here. Folk taking the family out in vans p1ssing petrol out everywhere, virtually no brakes, two inches of slack in the steering. How can you not notice this stuff? Still, they’re living the dream…
I don’t remember genuine parts for Vw’s ever being cheap, affordable yes, but they were never cheap, second hand stuff was readily available though perhaps that’s the difference?
The era I’m talking of was when our vans were at the end of their useful life as an every day motor and probably had 100k plus on the clock and the mechanicals were just on the cusp of giving up, that’s when a lot of people got into buying their first bus, I was fortunate enough to have a relatively new low mileage one, but always stopped to help a fellow air cooled owner.
I bought a trunk full of type-4 tinware, including the trunk for £15! There was more than a complete set in there. People want £15-40 now per part. That would value that trunk full at £1,000+. And a turnkey 1600 for £50 that just had a jammed distributor advance.
I emptied manyparts garage when he got divorced and had £1000’s of pounds of parts he’d stored from vans he broke, but virtually gave it away on here and other forums, I just couldn’t bare the thought of it going to waste.
Not really. In the old days it was a poor person's vehicle, now it's a classic owned largely by professionals. The whole thing has changed beyond recognition.
There used to be a home grown VW scrap yard in a village not far from me called Wiltshire Aircooled. They had an Artic full of spares, pallets of engines, whole vans and beetles in their yard, and a garage with a proper car lift with an old guy working there, who knew pretty much anything to do with bugs and buses. Parts were pence. Where are they now,eh?
Its true, trouble is I'm still that skint person who bought a van for £1200 to go hang out at VW shows (mostly because I like drinking beer in fields) and embark on silly adventures around Europe. There are times I really struggle to get my head around the whole situation with these old buses now. The T2 owning demographic has changed beyond my recognition and to be honest I sometimes feel like some sort of 90s throw back who really doesn't fit in. But that's probably, in truth, my take on the universe as a whole and not just the microcosmic world of classic campervans
There are people on the very forum who have gone out of their way to help me when I was broken down, I won't 'name and shame' them again, hopefully they felt suitably appreciated, when I got chance to catch up with them, I refuse to believe the spirit isn't still alive.
That's a bit harsh, Zed, desk pushers aren't necessarily bad people, some of them might have been poorer than you think when they were younger? In my case, my mate who had a Bus was earning a decent wage at 19, having left school and got himself a proper job, I was a poor student whose spare money didn't stretch further than some cheap HiFi from Mr Richer's emporium and a loan of my Mum's car when needed.
