Aircooled VW South Africa

Time for a little update.

Last month Paul and myself took a quick drive up to JHB to fetch 3 newly acquired Deluxe early bay kombi’s.

Here is the first one I had to collect. It’s engine had been removed around 25 years ago, so this had to be trailered. It was inherited from the current owners father with the engine also still removed. It had dropped a valve somewhere outside of Beaufort West, stripped and never put back together. The original motor was still kept in boxes and is matching its number to the original service book.

This is a 1970 model, Aquamarine colour on the outside and a very strange brown interior, chairs, mats, vinyl padding and floor panels are all brown.. Brown certainly seems a odd colour with turquoise, but it was listed. Its a first ive ever seen.
Colour code 070 and Tutone brown interior.


Here are a few pics.








As it has been out of use for so many years, the interior is extremely well preserved.







Some of the original docs.








Spares that came with the bus loaded up.




All loaded up with the engines and gearboxes strapped to the trailer and ready for the trip home.

Oh, the other red item on the front of the trailer is Paul’s fire pump that we had to pick up in Pretoria first. I’m sure he will have more pics of that later, it certainly is a rare item, I think dated 1957.

Very nice Find


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Here is the second one and the second stop in Bloemfontein to fetch it.

Obviously the first one is on the trailer, so this one we needed to drive back.

It had spent its whole life in Postmasburg (Northern Cape) and belonged to the local old aged home.

Paul warming up after an early morning start to the trip from Bloemfontein in a lovely -3 degrees morning. I was so kind to let Paul rather drive this stretch and appreciate the bus.


Not sure when last this bus has seen the open road.


On route and after the first fuel stop. The bus was doing amazingly well at 11.5 km/l. Hell, the merc was using 3 times as much at 4km/l.


Alas, we had a breakdown.


The motor suddenly started smoking badly and was running on 3 cylinders, one plug fouled up from the oil. The motor was feeling rather hot on the trip and smokey with old oil burning off out of the tinware. I suspected the heads and barrels where heavily clogged with old oil and dirt.

Well, this was about 100km outside Beaufort West. So, we couldn't remove the other kombi as it didn't run either, so we had no other choice but to tow this kombi behind the already loaded trailer. Well, the Mercedes now had a 1.2 ton trailer, 2 x 1.4 ton kombis, the very heavy fire pump, 4 engines and 4 gearboxes all in tow. We thought we may have an issue, but actually it didn't hinder it much at all.

We made Beaufort West and made an arrangement with a friend to leave it at his place that we could come back for it.

Here are a few more pics of the Postmasburg Deluxe.

Its a 1968 model. 68 must be the most unique out of the baywindow model years. There are many differences which I will get to later.
Colour code 02, Cape Green with the only choice being Gazelle interior.

Here is number 3. By this time I was sick of driving, so I just got a transporter to collect it in Bloemfontein.

This is a 1971 model.
Paint code 080, Tan. This is a 1971 only colour.
Interior 57/53, Brown trim and brown panels.


Its also an original bus.

Super nice busses!

Very nice indeed!

Where is my spotters commision

The 1970 turqoiuse bus engine before rebuild.



After rebuild and ready to have all the ancillaries fitted.


Then it was onto removing the engine from the 1968 Postmasburg bay.


The oil residue was hideous, years of it.


It also received a once over.


Ready for ancillaries to be installed.

The 68 and 71 pictured together. Both are very unique one year only colour for a bus.

Nice buses!

The 68 is unusual for a VWSA bus in having reverse lights.

Wow...all I see is GREEN

Nice busses. I like the number plate

Awesome buses Sean ! Your collection is growing bus by bus

Update on the 1970 Aquamarine Deluxe.

After rebuilding the original motor, the front suspension was next.

This poor bus had been fitted with a late model disk brake beam and some hideous coil over shock story. We can call it the Retrovan beam . It really looked hiseous having the late bay wheels on the front and early bay on the back.

After removing this disaster I could install a freshly rebuild early bay drum brake beam.


The bus also received similar treatment for the rest of the braking system, shocks, wheel bearings, cleaning CV joints etc. It is now driving absolutely stunning.

This bus was missing its rear bumper too, that got lost with a panel beater back in 1991 and part of the reason why this bus never drove since.
I sorted and sprayed another rear bumper but had to find the deluxe trim too.

I got hold of this, but it looked hideous.


I decided to do some beating and polishing and they came out absolutely amazing. Jacques arranged me some very nice rubber replacement inserts that work 100% too.

Some pictures of how it looks now.