I have always had a soft spot for the VW camper van ever since as a child my dad’s best friend was selling illegal booze from one. He stored it in secret compartments in the floor. Now don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t selling to me as I was no older than five or six but I thought the secret hiding place was so cool.
I was reading the story earlier this evening of the VW camper dumped in a lake in Norway in 1974 and now recently retrieved.
A good read in the Daily Telegraph:
Rare VW Camper rescued from watery grave
The Daily Telegraph
A Norwegian Volkswagen fanatic is undertaking a mammoth restoration after recovering a rust-riddled VW Microbus from the bottom of a fjord.
The 1957 Samba, one of the most iconic and valuable VW Campers, was pushed into the lake by a local hotelier when its gearbox failed in 1974.
Thirty years later enthusiast Morten Lund learned of the drowned Volkswagen and hired a remote-controlled submersible to search for it, discovering the Microbus lying face down at a depth of 50 feet (15 metres).
Undeterred, he hired divers and a mobile crane and lifted out his catch earlier this summer.
Now Lund faces an equally mammoth task restoring the Volkswagen to road-going condition.
The determined and hugely optimistic enthusiast excitedly told Practical Classics magazine: “It took me less than 30 minutes to get both front wheels rolling, and the steering works perfectly… The cargo floor and cab are nearly rust free – just some minor holes around the edges.”
The Samba is an iconic 23-window version with eight roof-light windows. That makes it one of the most prized and valuable variants.
In 2008 a completely original 1958 Samba made £56,000 at a UK auction. The year before, TV chef Jamie Oliver’s much-pimped 23-window Samba sold for £48,000.
