Street Sleeper

The majority of Raphael Derkson’s musical career has been spent performing aboard luxury cruise ships.

- Dave Richards

He has spent his whole life working as a professional musician, and is presently engaged as Cruise Director onboard a Luxury Cruise vessel. When he manages to take some time off from the ships, he spends most of his time in Southern California and, for a long time, he owned a 1981 VW Westfalia camper which was used for both travel and camping.

“One day, a good friend and fellow musician, who used to drive and maintain a VW bus back in college, showed me a picture of what he firmly believed was the ultimate VW bus: a Deluxe 23 window Samba... I immediately fell in love and was hooked, and so began my search for the Holy Grail of Volkswagen buses. It took some time, but eventually, in 2011, fortune was on my side and I finally found the exact year and model I had been looking for and the rest, as they say, is history… Many years, and many, many dollars later, I am now proud to own one of the most beautiful and drivable, original 23 window Deluxe buses around”.

This bus was built in Hanover, Germany and was originally exported to Switzerland in May 1961. Nothing is known of this period of its life, nor is it known exactly how or why it made its way over to the USA. The story really starts when Raphael saw the bus advertised and bought it from Riverside, California in June 2011.

“I’d been searching for an original German built, Deluxe walkthrough with Panorama windows and bullet style indicator lenses for what felt like a lifetime, and then there it was. Rusted, and with slightly damaged panels, but incredibly, drivable, and even more importantly, complete. Its engine was still a 34 HP 1,200, and it still ran!”