I've been looking for a camper for some time now, but obviously I'm cheap so I've not found one yet.

I came close a couple of weeks ago, the bus was a nice looking '59 devon and it was around £18k. This particular bus was advertised on a Saturday and it was sold on Monday and it seems like there was a lot of other interest in this bus as well. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't tatty either, just a nice usable camper. I've also seen fully restored campers for around the £30+ mark and they seem to be advertised for sale for ages and ages, plus others that are advertised at the mid 20k range and every month they have a 'price drop'. This got me thinking, why was there so much interest in the £18k bus whereas others just sit there not selling?

According to a couple of guys on the SSVC site, the £18k bus needed 'thousands' spent on it to make it 'correct', so it was a fair price - not a cheap bus.

But is this correctness important? Me personally, I'd prefer something usable, I don't want to pay more for a 100% correct and fully restored bus that I'm afraid to use. I think this is fairly common and might be the reason so many were interested in the '59. So are a lot of these buses now being 'over restored' for the market?

Are people trying to cash in on the collector market and get the most from their bus (or Beetle for that matter) by restoring it to the highest standard and asking top dollar for it, whereas that market is extremely small and the bigger market may well be down a notch or two?

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I think that some are better slightly personalised to suit the owners needs and thats why I chose to buy the best kombi I could around ten years back to convert to suit to my own needs. The mechanicals are stock as can be with a 1500 single port engine and as the gearbox in it popped out of reverse I flipped the diff in a 1300 I had in stock and fitted it to the van with the original reduction boxes as I want a stock height van with the better power of the 1500. The key thing for me was to have a sixties period table, seating for six in the back and a king size rock and roll bed and a period cooker on the door to maximise space. Paint is going on this week and will hopefully have it ready for the boat to bug jam on the 17 July. The paint used will be pastel white over velvet green so a slight change in shade on the top half of the van but will still look stock. A canterbury pitt cooker on the door will set off the interior. I spent a long time to work out exactly what I wanted the inside to look like and I'm happy with the end results as I had the interior in the van prior to stripping for paint. The point I'm making is that many of the older original interior conversions dont suits our needs nowadays and while I like my beetles 100% stock im not convinced van owners want the 100% stock original interior or the 1200 engine or the 6 volt electrics that the vans originally came with. If you go to most shows its the lower the better in many instances. If you look at whats selling for good money its the vans that are useable with largely stock looks and after many years of looking for 'the one' I ended up having to build 'the one' to get it how I wanted with the only downside being the ammount of man hours involved. If your struggling to find what you want build it,thats my advice. I will post some pics of the finished van in a few weeks before we set off. The project van used was a 66 ex californian van 11 window van with 6 pop outs so it was an excellent basis for the project.  20140721_155250.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.  20140716_114235.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.

Have to sympathise with you Rob. For a while now I've been considering a split screen Type ll (pre60 - as I dont want MOT hassle on something used a few times a year). I want RHD also, so I'm hoping!!

I love Beetles of course, but what can you carry in one.

Early Type ll prices are a real deterent, and I want something I'm not frightened to leave in the open sometimes. Few are original spec, though I've come round to seeing why when you consider the performance of an OG, 50s van.

What puts me off is that they always seem to have had welding and panels here, there and everywhere. Vans in excess of £25k do not seem to sell, and as said, are usually readvertised at lower prices. The main problem with refitted out campers is that other's personal taste is not mine, though a bare bones van would be best for me. :roll:

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It's crazy, a good friend of mine asked me to help him find a bus with a budget of £20k, I thought that's easy. How wrong could I be.... I think there is stuff out to buy but it's not on the open market. I know of an OG paint 13 window delux for sale for around 15k, needs a very small amount of work I reckon 3k spent on it would make it very nice if you are interested Rob I can send you the details.

Thanks Ian, I appreciate the offer. I'm really after a RHD devon, but I'd be interested in taking a look anyway...

:thumbup:

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Anything pre-1961 with semaphores is very desirable. Anything RHD is going to be very desirable to a UK market. Anything with a VW-approved camper conversion is going to be very desirable. That's why the '59 Devon would sell quickly and lots of seemingly nicer, LHD imports take much longer to sell.

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Pre60 RHD VW is the way it is going here in the UK. And that's not just the Type lls. Its become very much a factor now when I see Beetles up for sale. Some people bemoaned the pre60 MOT exemption as mad, but when you own cars pre60 that go out a few times a year it really is a good thing not to have the hassle and expense, plus someone poking around you car.:beer:

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I hear what you're saying Rich, but I've seen early rhd approved campers restored to A1 condition and they're advertised for ages, price is a huge factor. I didn't mean this to become a moaning about the price of buses thread - I was more wondering if the market can sustain the prices of fully restored buses. Like early beetles they become the investments of serious collectors instead of people who actually want to use them, but there seems to be considerably more top dollar buses for sale than early beetles. I think there's a big market for nice usable buses that are mid price, at the moment everything seems to be either a complete wreck or fully restored show winners.

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By comparing the Type lls with the early Beetles you have already found your answer I think Rob. There seems to be more wanted adverts for split-window Beetles than there are the few for sale adverts. So we can assume there are a good few buyers for them and they are not too easy to get. With the split-screen Type lls there are many for sale on Samba, Ebay and elsewhere. They seem to stay on the market for months, this would indicate that the market cannot sustain the values that sellers have previously paid or think they are worth. A bit like the housing bubble we are being warned of, the Type ll bubble could well burst.:mellow:

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There's certainly no shortage of busses around. Just driving around last weekend I saw lots of Bays and even a couple of splitties. What I didn't see was any Beetles, let alone early cars. I think we're seeing 'fad' prices at the moment still.

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I said that I would pop up a couple of pics of the finished 66 split on its maiden voyage to Bugjam 28. The ferry was on the 17th and it passed mot on the 16 July which was the final day of operating for a DVLA motor tax offices in Northern Ireland as on the 17th July all was taken over by Swansea. The van was motd in Omagh and I got my last tax disc from the man at the counter in the Omagh motor tax office. We finished off a few more non mot related bits and pieces and the van was done. We covered the 500 mile trip with the only teething problems being a blocked jet outside Leiceister and some timing and points adjustment at the same time. Will be down at Armagh this weekend checking out the Eireball vw charity run at their first stopover and putting as many miles on it as I can before it goes into hibernation for the Winter.

A few pics of the split from last years maiden voyage to bugjam as promised. The first one is just after passing it's mot the day before the boat 2 days before BugJam 28. The next on the way home stopped off for tea and krispy kreme donuts. 10 days before that it had a gear box that was jumping out of reverse which I decided to swap out for a beetle box following a quick diff flip and was still only in its second coat of primer. Busy final week getting it ready to go to the jam. we got there and back with only the points closing up and needing a quick adjustment due to lack of use.  pre67 split.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.  pre67 split 2.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.

I'm more than a little deterred by the price of this one, John:-

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1703897 

:shock:

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Yes its expensive, but its pretty rare as the roof windows are taller than a regular samba and is practically a prototype for the samba. If you put the work in yourself you can have a nice bus for a lot less. Check out mine which was imported from California and finished for around 2.5% of the the price of this bus.

:shock: You could buy a nice house for that.

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You could probably buy a kubel, kdfwagen and a scwimm for that or a couple of hebmullers.