GO WESTY

WITH THE POP-TOP GIVING STANDING ROOM AND REAR BENCH SEAT FOLDING IN TO A BED, THIS '65 SPLIT-SCREEN KOMBI WESTFALIA REDEFINES ESCAPISM COOL

- IAIN CURRY

Has a socially significant cult car ever had such a dull name? Volkswagen dubbed it the Type 2, but history’s added far more colour to the model we Aussies affectionately call the Kombi. Since its 1950 launch, the air-cooled rear-engine Transporter has been nicknamed the Splitty, Hippie Bus, Ganja Bus, Campervan and Shaggin’ Wagon, although the latter’s seemingly applied to any vehicle that fits a mattress.

These Kombi Fun Buses are as woven into Australian beach culture as surfboards and suntans. No other car so perfectly represents a lifestyle on wheels, and clichés runneth over. Peace, love, freedom…with a decent dose of Good Time thrown in.

Tracey Little’s 1965 split-window T1 Kombi is a live-in party van with a hotted-up flat-four in its rump. It’s a genuine Westfalia SO 42 ‘Campmobile’ first registered in 1966 to an American chap travelling through Europe. The Kombi followed him to Australia when he scored a job on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme, was right-hand drive converted and has been resident here ever since.

“Everybody’s got a Vee Dub story, and Kombi ones are absolute crack-ups,” said Tracey as we sit on colourful scatter cushions in the Westy’s (another nickname) cosy camping-ready cabin. “Stories are always great when it involves camping, and on a hot day, parked in the Queensland sun, I swear you can smell 1960s man odour in here. All the original cabinetry’s still there, but with new laminate faces.”

There’s fascination everywhere you look. A bench seat that converts to a bed; mini wardrobe; curtains; bookshelves, roof speakers; faux plants, pop-top tent; picnic table; safari (top hinged) windows front and rear; front quarter lights; wooden roof rack; dashboard basket and bus-like near-horizontal steering wheel sitting directly above the front axle.