13 Window Split Screen

Every time we feature a car in VolksWorld, it's someone's pride and joy, but the stories behind them all are different. As are the attitudes of the people who own them - some build cars for themselves, others to win shows, while others pay professionals to fulfil their dreams. Each are as worthy of each other for inclusion, but there's just something about a story like that of Shawn and Nicola Baker that makes their vehicle just that bit more special in our eyes. For a start, you're unlikely to find either of these two polishing their lug nuts on the Sunday morning at Bug Jam (more likely rubbing their sore heads from the night before), and you won't find them clamouring for attention at any other show. What you will find though is them jumping in their Bus and heading out for one of the big VW shows in Europe, breaking a half shaft ("showing off doing dry burnouts!") and having to find a local garage to arc weld it back together before carrying on their way - in other words, using and having fun in their pride and joy that they sweated blood and tears to buy and build themselves. And like so many before, the restoration story that accompanies it shows their dedication and willingness to make sacrifices and graft for what they've got. Working during the day running his own Brighton-based property maintenance business, Shawn would finish at 6pm on a Friday, pick up Nicola and then drive 31/2 hours across country to Nicola's parents house in the West Country, working on the Bus until midnight, then all weekend until late Sunday, every weekend for a year. That puts our rates of progress on our cars to shame for sure.
And we're not just talking a quick lick of paint and a set of wheels here, for despite this Bus being advertised as "sorted" when they bought it, it was everything but that. Fortunately, Shawn has some experience of restorations behind him, in the form of a Mk1 Escort Mexico and a Mk3 Mini Cooper, but he knew he had his work cut out for him when they bought this Bus. "I learnt to drive in my parent's ‘66 Beetle, and drove their successive Beetles after that, then some years ago I bought myself a ‘74 Standard Beetle," Shawn recalls, "that was fun but wasn't really what I wanted. Then, in early 2001 we looked at a copy of VolksWorld, after deciding we'd like to get back into air-cooled VWs, and saw the ad for our Bus in the back... With my history of air-cooled VWs I kind of knew what I was looking at and could tell it was going to need a lot of work, but there was something about it that told us it was going to be ‘our' Bus. The good thing was that because it was in such a state then I had no worries about doing exactly what we wanted with it in regard to modifications."

For the full story on this car make sure you pick up a copy of the June 2009 issue of VolksWorld 

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