BAY GENE BELIEVER

As a child, Zoe Cox was inspired by her grandmother’s travels in an old Bay Window Van and promised herself that she’d one day retrace Grandma Gene’s footsteps…

- Paul Knight

As a child, Zoe Cox admired her grandma Gene, who told tales of her adventures through Spain and Gibraltar at the wheel of her beloved Bay Window Camper. Zoe explained, “Those memories have stuck with me and I’ve always dreamed of one day following in my grandma’s footsteps and visiting some of her favourite destinations in a Camper of my own.” However, life has a knack of filling your time and pushing dreams and plans towards the backburner, which is pretty much how things panned out for Zoe. She said, “My husband, Jamie, and I were kept busy bringing up Ben and Charlotte (now 17 and 16 years of age) and I had resigned myself to the fact that Gene’s adventures were now a series of tales that I could pass on to my kids.” This is where Jamie stepped in with perhaps the most awesome 40th birthday present imaginable – a ’72 Dormobile Camper project. Of course, Zoe was blown away as her fading dream was suddenly now a vivid reality! She commented, “I named the Van ‘Gene’ and every time we go out for a drive, I smile from ear to ear as I’m sure my nan did in her Camper, too.”

Blame Jamie

Zoe’s husband, Jamie, happens to be quite a VW fan and has owned a string of previous air- and water-cooled VWs (in fact, his current T4 is about to appear in our sister title, VWt). Consequently, he’d paid attention to the nana Gene story and pulled out all the stops to source and secure the perfect birthday gift for his lovely wife (and, dare we say it, picked up a bunch of brownie points while he was at it).