Yesterday was the end of an era. I finally sold my 1977 2 litre VW Kombi.
Kombis have been a feature of our family since my dad bought our brand new light blue 1500 Microbus in 1970. At the time no one drove around in a big van. We could always find our car in the car park, and you could always see over all the traffic. How times have changed!
We average around 45,000km per year, mostly going from the farm to the city and the Kombi went without a hitch until he rolled it near Hartley in 1976 with around 300,000 km on the clock.
We replaced the 1500 model with what seemed like a very powerful new 2 litre model. This was a fantastic workhorse which served us very well until 1988 when dad wiped that one out in thick fog by driving into the back of a truck. It had only 450,000 km on the clock (he had two cars by then so the Kombi didn’t do as much work each year)
Unfortunately, you couldn’t get new Kombi’s in Australia at that time so dad was in a dilemma. He liked the Kombi so much that he was forced to buy his first 2nd hand vehicle ‘? it was a white 1976 Kombi. This one was originally an 1800 but converted to a 2 litre with fuel injection.
My father died in 1996 and we sold the white Kombi about 6 months later but I still had my 1977 ex army Kombi.
In 1990 we had bought two ex army Kombis mostly for parts but with the vague idea of combining the parts to make one good one. They sat on the farm for a few years but in 1994 I spent a weekend working on one of them and got it registered the following week.
This became my 2nd car at the time and later it became my sole means of transport for a few years.
It is funny how you can get attached to a vehicle. But a Kombi really isn’t like any car. You can sleep in it, eat in it, make love in it, take the kids to soccer in it and a whole lot more.
I know I will miss jumping in the old Kombi. In some ways, it is like selling one’s youth. But I couldn’t really justify keeping it as realistically I wouldn’t use it very much at all. I’ve done less than 2000 km in it in the last 2 years but it has done just over 550,000km.
Originally uploaded by crispycruiser
At least I still have a 1969 beetle if I feel the need to tinker.