Table of contents for Issue 95 in VWt

G-SHOCK X BRITISH ARMY GG-B100BA MUDMASTER Atteeeeen-chun! You scrawny little no good for nothing maggots, have we got a watch for you! Hit the floor, gimme 50 and show some respect to the first timepiece from the bespoke G-Shock HM Armed Forces collection. Released as part of the G-Shock Ministry of Defence’s new partnership, the GG-B100BA is an unbreakable timepiece built from the Never Give Up philosophy that makes it perfectly equipped to support UK Servicemen, and you, all over the world. It’s built to withstand the harshest land environments and features an updated Carbon Core Guard Structure and triple-layered carbon-insert bezel, providing durability in a lightweight case. It also features a camouflage design inspired by the Army’s own Multi Terrain Pattern and sports a stealth-black dial, specifically requested by…

Visiontech Automotive won the ‘Best Camper over £42k’ award at the NEC in February this year, despite some pretty serious competition, including offerings from Volkswagen themselves. The Volkswagen California won the award in 2019 and the California and California Beach were up again in this year’s competition but were pipped to the post by the VTA 20/20 Vision. As we reported earlier this year, the 20/20 Vision is a further development of the original Vision conversion, with a slimmer curved fridge pod, leather-clad veneers and dual swivel seats. 8 judges and the panel of the Campervan and Motorhome Club all voted for the 20/20 Vision, so it’s kind of a big deal – well done guys.…

Even the early stages of the car show crippling CoronaVirus couldn’t stop our yearly roadtrip to Telford for the always awesome, super-spectacular that is, Ultimate Dubs. Every year we make the trip and every year you can be guaranteed a cracking show, good laughs and one helluva hangover - if you’re silly like us and spend most of Saturday night at the bar. Yep, we never learn! UD is officially the UK’s largest indoor VAG gathering, bringing together the best VW, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Porsche, Lambo and most importantly Transporter builds, from all across Europe. It doesn’t seem that long ago, it was row upon row of Golfs, Passats and Polos all sporting classic BBS rims and engine swaps. Were as these days UD is a lot more diverse and…

First off, hello and welcome to the ‘Our Vans’ section. The place where we show you what we’ve been up to on our Transporters. Originally, I was hoping to debut my new project van in this issue, but things didn’t exactly go to plan with the purchase… You see the weekend of Ultimate Dubs, I took a trip up to Salop Vans in Shrewsbury from Bristol (where I currently live) to go and check out a few vans and see if I could find something that would tickle my particulars. On arrival I jumped out my car and pretty much stood there opened mouth at the thirty plus Transporters for sale before me. For those that don’t know, Salop Vans have been trading since the early ‘90s and they have…

Own a tremendous Transporter and want it featured in these very pages? We would love to see what you’re driving! Please e-mail a selection of good quality images that show the exterior, interior and a few angles of your van to glenn.rowswell@kelsey.co.uk along with a full spec list and add the subject title ‘Feature Me VWt’. If we like what we see, we’ll get back to you and talk about the possibility of a VWt magazine feature shoot. So, what are you waiting for? Get snapping and show us what you’ve got!…

Simply Surf Bus, or SSB as owner Dan Birch affectionately calls it has been around for over 15 years. Dan himself has been playing with Volkswagens for twice that length of time. The upshot of this simple equation is a string of awesome custom vans and a large following of loyal customers. Based in Clevedon, sandwiched between Bristol and West-super-Mare, Dan has been heavily involved with Bristol Volksfest since meeting head honcho Adrian Ashby at Dream Machine back in the day. Dan: “As part of the BVF team, we organise random events and silly competitions. One of those is the horniest horn. We drive round the campsite in a golf buggy getting people to honk their horns. Whoever we decide has the best horn, wins a prize. As this thing…

PIONEER SPH-EVO8TAB-BT TABLET HEADUNIT We’ve seen ‘face-off’ stereos before, but this is ridiculous… ridiculous and extremely fapping cool. Yep, clearly Pioneer aren’t ones to merely upset the audio world apple cart, they prefer to load the bastard up with Semtex and blow it into lovely little fruity pieces. So, what is it? A super-slick 8-inch tablet that mounts to a hard-wired receiver in your van, that’s what. And yes, it’s exactly as epic as it sounds. Perhaps the best thing, though, is that it’s not some sort of sales gimmick. While you still get all the audiophile-pleasing features that Pioneer is so renowned for – 13-band EQs and all that jazz – now the whole lot comes in a portable package complete with a quad-core processor, a camera, a Lithium-ion…

Like many companies in the VW scene, when Graham formed Camperversions (www. camperversions.co.uk), it was just an extension of his hobby, a distraction from the business that he was running at the time. Having cut his teeth on VW’s early water-cooled models – first owning two Golfs, then two Polos – and having been to his fair share of VW shows, Graham noticed something about a lot of the T4’s and 5’s that were at the shows at the time. Although you’d be hard-pressed to think about such a scenario now, around 8-10 years ago, much of what was being built on the camper interiors front was, to put it succinctly, a bit rubbish. What Graham saw on a lot of these campers were interiors that had been nailed together…

Since the very dawn of the car scene, anyone embarking on a show build has had to decide where they stand within the dreaded sliding scale of compromise. Let us explain. Whether you like it or not, the more blood, sweat and moola you plough into your four-wheeled friend, the more likely it is to be strictly locked away in your garage all year round, wheeled out only for the odd sunny weekend event here and there – it’s just a fact of life. Or is it…? As you begin to soak up the finer details on Toby’s stunning Caddy here, it appears that he’s one man who’s a prime example of our aforementioned theory in action. It’s just another case of a work-ready van that’s been whisked off-site and…

These project vans are never ‘finished’ right? There is always something else to do to them… My modifications maybe viewed as a little more extreme than most…. although I really don’t think a quick driveway graffiti respray is that ‘crazy’ is it? I encourage more people to take a look at the awesome colour palettes available with graffiti paint. It’s super easy to paint with and you can turn a plain old van into something a bit cooler for a couple hundred quid with a bunch of mates, all whilst enjoying a few ciders over a weekend, but more on that another time. Anyway, back to my van, it’s a 2002 LWB Twin slider that I’ve owned since 2015 – I was in Ireland visiting Happy Campers shooting some of…

The dividing line between water and air in Volkswagens must be unique in the car world. Sure you get the classic MG owners sniffing at plastic bumpered cars, and you might find a Ford guy who isn’t interested unless it was built in Dagenham. But the difference between an aircooled VW and one featuring a radiator is unarguably stark. That being said, the true beauty of Volkswagen means that, for all the differences of the vehicles, you’ll always find a good mix of both over the course of any show weekend. What you won’t usually find is a mixture quite on the level of what we are bringing to you now, surprisingly for the second time. Wait? How did you miss this first time around? A 1991 T4 running 1960’s…

SLIDEPODS SEATPOD The UK is packed full of great innovators and the van scene boasts more than its fair share of clever clogs creating ingenious products. One of which is Slidepods, the people behind the famous Slidepod range, an innovative way to add a rear campervan kitchen to your T5/T6 Kombi, Caravelle or California Beach. But with the bonus that it’s easily removable. Well, they’ve done it again with their latest creation, the Seatpod. This unique removable system, designed to fit any SWB or LWB Transporter provides a full Slidepod kitchen, a camping seat, a huge amount of storage and a full-size fully removable double bed/seat system. The product has been designed especially for those who do not need a rear passenger carrying seat (to help reduce costs), so it’s…

Visiontech. Unless this is the first issue of VWt that you’ve ever picked up (or you’ve been under a rock), you’ll likely have seen a fair few offerings in the mag from the Colchester based company. We’ve waxed lyrical in the past about their stuff and the way they set out the packages, giving a semi-bespoke feel to their builds, but with a completely transparent pricing structure. They also invented the fibreglass units and curved fridge pod on their Vision interior; clever out of the box thinking that saves weight and looks great too. More recently, we brought you a feature on their redesigned 20/20 Vision interior, which is now offered with a slimmer fridge pod to allow two swivel bases. What hasn’t been publicised until now, is the switch…

Constant improvements and outside the box thinking has netted Camperversions 2 local business awards in the last couple of years; a creativity award and a customer service award; there’s a lot to be said about giving your business to an award-winning company, especially when this is backed up by over 70, 5-star reviews on Facebook! Speaking to Graham during the Coronavirus lockdown, Graham was just about to start a planned phased re-opening, but it’s clear he’s used the time off to do some creative thinking and make future plans, some of which involve some partnership deals with their trusted suppliers.…

The Volkswagen Crafter is celebrating its 45th anniversary, having first been revealed to the world in Berlin in April 1975. With a requirement for a van that could carry heavier loads, Volkswagen developed a van to fill the gap between its iconic Transporter model and a heavy truck – a cargo vehicle in the 2.8 to 3.5-tonne segment. Originally, it was called the LT, short for Lasten-Transporter, which loosely translates as heavy load Transporter. It was available in two wheelbases, two roof variants, as a panel van, station wagon, bus, platform and double cab. This versatility has stayed with the Crafter across four generations and over the past 45 years, and since it launched, more than 1.5 million models have been produced and sold across the world. To celebrate its…

STEVE & PAULA JONES’ 2009 T5 T28, Mid Wales Hello VWt, we’ve always been into cars, but always liked the Transporter and liked the idea of building our own camper. So in October 2013 we took the plunge, sold our fully converted Vivaro and bought the T5 for the same money. It had one owner, low mileage and was on coilovers and Range Rover wheels. It had been carpeted in the back, which had to be ripped out when the new roof and windows were put in. Next was the wiring, insulation and carpeting which I did in the November. Then came the units, these took me a couple weeks to assemble in the spare room, but by December these were in. I started off with a mid-range R&R bed,…