21-window Samba

The story behind this incredible 1965 21-window Samba started with a phone call. Bug Box proprietor and long-term Bus enthusiast Walter Jelinek recalls: "It was Thursday July 24, 2008 and I answered a call out of the blue. On the other end of the line was Michael Häusler of Janus TV, a television company responsible for producing the Abenteuer Auto (translated: Car Adventure) program for the Kabel 1 network in Germany. Michael wanted to source and have restored a VW Split Screen Bus to give away as a competition prize to complement the show's success and mark its 10th series with something a little special."
Abenteuer Auto's format is vaguely similar to the Pimp My Ride genre where a vehicle is sourced and its restoration and transformation is fully documented by a television crew before being reunited with its owner. The one major difference with the Samba project was, rather than choose an applicant to have their own vehicle ‘pimped', the Germanic slant was that the vehicle should be selected, restored and modified and then given away as a prize. Running over nine episodes every Saturday at 5.20pm, the show has over 1,000,000 viewers who have the option to interact by phoning in and answering simple questions in order to be eligible to win the prize.
Back to the plot: Walter's initial answer to Herr Häusler's telephone enquiry was an emphatic Nein! Being far too busy to entertain devoting three months of his and his employees' hours to a semi-unpaid project, Walter's thoughts were that the business should come first and fame a distant second. But the more he thought about it, the more the project made sense from a business perspective, also. With major airtime spanning over two and a half months, The Bug Box, as a company, would be able to show off its skills, creativity and professionalism to a huge audience, therefore putting itself well and truly on the VW restorer's map. Surely business would flow in as a result.
Shortly after the initial phone call, Walter met up with Herr Häusler and Janus' editor in chief, Christoph Reifenrath, to discuss the project at length. Walter's stipulations were that he alone should be responsible for sourcing the Bus and that it should be a Samba from a dry US State. As much as possible, the Bus should sport original paint so that no hidden nasties could be concealed behind shiny fresh paint and the American penchant for Bondo. Being that Walter has many contacts in California, it was agreed that Walter should fly out along with the Janus crew to source, document, purchase and ship to Germany the project vehicle for the up and coming series.

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

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