Goggle Box

What you’re looking at here, is more than just a cool, slammed Barndoor, it’s one the earliest Barndoors with a rear window on the planet

- James Peene

When our ace snapper Rob Underwood asked if we wanted him to shoot a Barndoor Panel Van he’d found, the answer was always going to be a resounding “Yes!” If for no other reason than it’s a gnarly BD Panel Van with some cool logos. However, it wasn’t until we began digging into the history of this Bus that we discovered there’s a little more to this it than meets the eye.

It’s current owner is a chap called Andrew Atkins, who bought the Bus as-is, but the story, for us anyway, begins with Barndoor nut and occasional VolksWorld and Camper&Bus columnist Ben Laughton. Ben told us: “It’s a cool Bus and a gamble that really paid off. We need to go back to January 2014 when I spotted an advert for the Bus on the SSVW website…

“The Bus was in Belgium at the time and the advert was written in French. The few photos that accompanied the post showed a fairly sorry looking Barndoor Panel Van that was sat on the floor with no running gear and lots of missing parts. I couldn’t understand much of the wording of the advert, but my eagle eyes spotted the early-style bulkhead and early-style tool chest area under the seat. I quickly realised that I was looking at quite an early 1951 Barndoor, and definitely one worth saving.

“I made a quick call to my good friend Stephan, who hails from Belgium himself, and he rang the owner on my behalf to try and buy it.

Pub talk

“The problem is that Belgium has three official languages, and a number of local dialects. Typically, Stephan and the seller were from different parts of the country and so the conversation wasn’t the easiest. Oh, and I’d caught Stephan in the pub after work which muddled things a little more…