Wendy The Westy - Part 1

So, here's Wendy. She's a 1966 Volkswagen Camper. For the purist, the official designation would be Volkswagen Type 2 Kombi with SO-42 Westfalia camper conversion. Wendy started out life on May 25, 1966 as chassis number 236160780 at the VW factory in Hanover, West Germany. Shortly thereafter, she was delivered to Westfalia-Werke to have the camper equipment installed. Cabinets were added. A hole was cut in the roof for the pop-top. Grey linoleum was laid down in the cargo/living area and birch paneling was applied to the walls and roof. The final step was to place the keys in the hands of some lucky owner. VW had a number of destinations to which the final product could be delivered. One such port of call was known as the Tourist Delivery Program. Taking this route, the purchaser would book passage on the airline of their choice, bound for any number of European cities, to take delivery of their new vehicle. Buses were usually picked up in Hanover, but other arrangements could be made. The owner(s) would then spend the next several days, weeks or months traveling Europe via their new set of wheels. Once the holiday was through, they could either opt to sell the vehicle in Europe or for a couple of hundred bucks, have it shipped back home. Wendy was designated as a USA Tourist Delivery model. She was built to US safety specs with left-hand drive. As to what adventures her owners encountered while traveling Europe, I can't imagine. Unfortunately, the trail goes cold after she left the factory on June 30, 1966. Fast forward to 1998, when a certain road-weary camper turned up in the hands of a VW aficionado in Maryland. Wendy wore her age like Maggie Mae from the old Rod Stewart song. Rust in all of the usual places. While everything was pretty much intact, bondo patches testified to at least one rear-end incursion and one or more similar events in the front. Peeling paint and an rebuilt engine that had been pulled from another VW of some ilk completed the list. The new owner had purchased Wendy for the princely sum of $700 from a gentleman who had acquired the bus as part of a settlement for "debts owed" and had little need of a 32 year-old camper. For about five months, the new owner's determination was strong, then he came across a camper in slightly better shape and decided that his restoration funds would be better spent on the new arrival. Wendy sat for a few months while waiting for a new owner. When she didn't get any immediate offers, the decision was made to "part out" the bus. The camper interior was sold. Then the seats and jalousie windows made their way to another bus in need, along with the interior paneling. Lastly the bumpers and speedometer found new homes. Wendy was pretty much a metal shell with an engine. In 1999, the bus came to the attention of another VW fan from North Carolina who had exchanged several emails with the Maryland contingent on a Volkswagen listserv. He and his wife made the trek to Maryland and purchased the bus on the spot. It was during the trip back to North Carolina that she was dubbed "Wendy", since without windows, she provided a very "windy" ride indeed. Over the next several years, many of the items that had been sold off were replaced by the couple from NC. Wendy was a camper once again, making trips to Phish concerts and the like up and down the Eastern Seaboard. During one such trip, her owners where denied entry into Canada since VW buses seem to be as much a part of drug paraphenalia as bongs and rolling papers. In 2004, Wendy's owners were in the midst of a career change and could no longer justify putting money into the bus. In July of that year, she was listed on eBay where she caught my eye. I had wanted an old VW bus for as long as I could remember (sometimes I think I was born 20 years too late), so I made a bid just to see what would happen. Then came the final day of bidding. I was sitting at my desk at work, pretending to be about the company's business, all the while watching the price go up, up , up. At the last, I submitted an offer for $1750 which stuck. I was now the proud owner of a nearly 40 year-old rustwagon. Wendy (my girlfriend, not the bus) and I made the trip to Durham, NC on a sweltering July afternoon to take delivery. Upon arrival we were greeted by a bus with a few layers of peeling white paint and a floorboard which had been reconstructed with roofing tar and pieces of sheet metal. Fairly common condition for buses, actually. We chatted with the previous owner for awhile and completed the necessary paperwork. Finally, we were off to the license plate office to get tags for the ride back to Winston-Salem. Everything seemed to be going fine until I tried to back the bus out of the parking space at the license plate agency. I couldn't find reverse. The heat, which was stifling in the metal sweatbox, didn't help matters as I cursed with each failed attempt to find a solution. Wendy made several offers to help since she had driven a VW before, but male hard-headedness took control of my sense of hearing. I would have none of it. Of course, I knew the best way to handle the situation (yeah, right). Finally, I asked Wendy to hop behind the wheel while I pushed the bus out of the parking space. We made another stop at an Eckerd Drug Store to grab some cold drinks to replace the gallon or so of fluids lost in the Quest for Reverse. When I returned to the bus, Wendy proudly showed me how to get the bus in reverse. Show off! The trip back to Winston was fairly uneventful given that a steady stream of rain tested Wendy's underperforming windshield wipers and sudden gusts of wind from passing semis threatened to blow the camper off of the road. Once home, I began firing off messages to various VW websites in the hopes of learning more about the ins and outs of old buses. I spent an afternoon pulling out the camping interior to get an idea of what I was working with. Rust, naturally, made its appearance in more places than I could count. Before I could start any sort of minor cosmetic work, I needed someone to perform a bit of magic with an arc welder. That's when I met a gentleman who called himself Metalwizard...