Blast​​​​​​​ From The Past

This big engined Deluxe was bought for a bargain price in days of old, but it’s comes a long way to end up looking like this.

- Gordie Woollacott 

Does anybody else remember a time when Split Screen Bus prices were based on the theory that they cost £1,000 per window? Those were the days, eh? When you could buy an 11-window for the price of a four year old Ford Mondeo and Panel Vans cost peanuts!

Legend has it that you could pick up a road legal Bay Window in the ’90s for £50… How things change!

One thing that has always remained the same is that the king of all the Volkswagens, the Chief High Priest, the Pontifex Maximus is and always has been the 23-window Samba. You want one, right? We want one. Everyone wants one. But getting one? Well that’s an entirely different matter. Even if you have the means in today’s market, and by means we mean Oligarch level means, you still need to find somebody willing to part with theirs.

To realistically achieve 23-window Samba ownership in 2018, your most realistic option is to build a time machine and go back to a place before everybody snapped them up.

Outta time

Unsurprisingly, Grant Jones doesn’t have a time machine, but then again he doesn’t need one. He was there, man. You weren’t! Well, you might well have been, but this isn’t actually ‘Nam. What it is though is a string of rather fortunate events that brought this original UK supplied RHD 1960 23-window into his possession.