“Why’s it called Ernie dad?” enquires Toby Stowe’s daughter Sally as we are about to photograph a stunning-looking one-off pickup that began life back in 2005 as a humble T5 Chassis Cab with a 1.9-liter diesel engine under the bonnet. “The fastest milkman in the west,” replies Toby, who’s the man behind the campervan conversion company T4Life and the owner of the custom project seen here, that took an amazing three years to complete and involved a wide range of specialists.
Anyone over the age of 50 will probably know what Toby is referring to—the title of a song, which comedian Benny Hill performed on his show back in 1970. It was about a milkman with a horse-drawn cart and the song was released as a single in 1971, whereby it made it to the number one spot for a staggering four weeks over Christmas.
Volkswagen never made a T5 pickup, the nearest being their Crew and Chassis Cab models, which could be equipped with a range of rear outfits to create a tipper, box van or car transporter, but never one like this.
“It all started with a local farmer scrounging used steel wheels for his worn-out 2005 Chassis Cab T5,” recalls Toby, who kindly donated the wheels to him. “After a year or so and half a dozen wheels later, I joked 'I own half of your truck!' to which he replied, “it's for sale.'” Toby was tempted by the cheap and worn-out flatbed Chassis Cab because he could immediately see a use for it in turning it into something a little special.
Denne historien er fra Issue 100-utgaven av VW Bus T4&5+.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 100-utgaven av VW Bus T4&5+.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
The Evolution of Van
To mark 100 issues of VWBus, David takes a look back at how updating the humble ‘Box on Wheels’ has gone from concept to reality
Wild Times
Perhaps a sign of the wild times we’re in and a telling sign of how fast we’re adapting to the ‘new normal’. I decide to take a U-turn and zoom out on how things looked as that ‘new normal’ was taking hold, along with how that’s effecting our little sector
Story's Story
With The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden under our belts and barely two weeks on the road, we were heading to the ultimate van life destination; Norway…
Karmann-Go
When you own ‘The fastest motorhome in the world’,getting to the campsite on time shouldn’t be a problem
Gran Tourettesmo
This is a very cool and interesting project, but the question is,is this the ultimate eBay build?
CBBA
If there was such a thing as Cool Bus Builders Anonymous, then each meet in Leicestershire would start with the words. “Hello, my name’s Andy Stretton and I can’t stop building seriously cool buses.”
Honey I Shrunk My Bus
When Grant Gwyn walked into a VW dealership to buy a Viper green Caddy, little did he know his future was about to be very orange...
Milk Float Influence
Nicknamed Ernie, we discover this custom-created T5 pickup won’t be doing the early morning milk round any time soon
Impossible Solved
A while back we brought you a basic sketch of a proposed project, it was both wild and eminently practical. Well it’s finished now and already in service as a daily driver for a very special lad
An Alpine Summer
In the concluding instalment we pick up Richard and Jackie Pickles’ story of their eight-country Alpine summer adventure on the shore of Lake Como in Italy
