The plan was to get on the road, stock up with some fresh locally blended “Shack Coffee” to go and pull in somewhere beautiful in Donegal in this 1972 VW Camper and enjoy it all.
One look at the high finish in matching leather on this interior of this immaculately restored icon decided for me that this was not going to happen for fear of spilling. Today was going to about driving, just pure driving.
Swings and roundabouts
It’s was a bit like the day the swings landed in “the green” in Glencar. Years before that we played rounders with a broken tennis racket or used coats for goalposts when we lined out as Tottenham Hotspur (always Spurs as one of our neighbours once got a trial with them).
When the Urban district council erected a set of six swings there were queues in the green to get a run on them.
It doesn’t get much better than this , parked up in the Carpark of Grianan Fort looking over up Lough Swilly from the window of the beautiful VW camper. Photo Brian McDaid.
They seemed to come from everywhere for a run on the swings. For some, they were too big to be on a swing and for others their feet wouldn’t touch the ground and others even wanted to stand up when they were swinging but all had one thing in common they were enjoying themselves.
by DD Motoring Correspondent Brian McDaid
That’s what it was like this week as word got out that Donagheys had a classic 1972, VW camper for sale. Everyone that ended up in the yard this week had a VW memory in their head. It was like a big sat nav magnet guiding them all in for a look or a test drive.
I even met a schoolmate that I haven’t seen in years both of us living in the same town. As we are having the yarn we could hear the burble of the air-cooled powered camper before the van came into sight.
The conversation drops as the petite icon makes its way up the yard. The two school friends did a lot of growing since the first time they saw campers like this landing into town for the old Letterkenny International Folk Festival.
I have to say my school mate looked far better in the camper than me but I was lucky his wife was with him and told him “get out”, you’re not buying it.
The old classic handbrake and gearstick and flick switched in the VW vamper which we enjoyed so much driving this week. Photo Brian McDaid.
On the road
So now I’m behind the wheel and need to get on the road before someone else lands in for a gander at this crowd puller. I head out the dual carriageway.
Even with the two outbound lanes, most are happy to sit behind and look at the beautifully finished van painted in cream over deep red. It sits low on the road and is shod with a set of low profile wide tyres on what looked like Porsche 911 wheels.
These have a great grip on the road as I was soon to find out because of the lack of power steering. As we head out over the top of Trimeragh and down into Rossbracken on the dual carriage I feel as if I’m on the old swings in the green flying high once again but a glance down at the speedometer tells me I’ll be springing no speed traps with this classic today.
Having said that this engine feels more powerful that what I expected. And as we head out of the manor roundabout you can hear the whizz of the gearbox and differential responding to the engine away at the back of this workhorse. If the steering was heavy when moving slowly it has become the opposite as speed. Every so often nearly like the rudder of a boat you have to make small adjustments with the big steering wheel to keep this van going in a straight line.
The high finish of the interior on this 1972 VW camper which we had the pleasure of driving this week. Photo Brian Mc Daid.
Whatever Ferdinand Porsche did when he invented the first Volkswagen Type 1 some 80 years ago he gave the cars and van a similar personality – the same sound and smell from them amazing air cooled engines. Earlier this year when I interviewed Beetle ace Patsy Hamilton, who was also born the same year the first Beetle started prototypes were built.
Listening to Patsy talking about building VW engines down in McClean and McLaughlins all them years ago it felt as if I was reading the book. Today I feel as I am watching the film in glorious surround sound looking out this wee bay-view window of the camper.
Bucket list
To spend a day behind the wheel of a classic air-cooled VW has been on my mind for the longest of times. I have vague memories of people living in an old battered VW camper along the college pitch wall across from St. Eunans college when I was going to school years ago.
I’m not sure if the arrived the time of the Folk Festival and maybe broke down but I remember it still parked up after they vacated it. It was the really old type with a double-sided doors instead of the new sliding door. I would nearly swear or want to believe it was nearly the same colour as the 1972 VW camper I had the pleasure of driving courtesy of Donaghey’s this week. I drove and repaired bodywork on beetles over the years but getting behind the wheel of this campervan was at the top of my bucket list.
When you consider that an engine designed before World War 2 which was in the beetles, vans, pickups, and campers until the end of production in the 1970s and forty odd years on down the road, with a bit of care these air-cooled engines as still going strong with a personality of their own.
There not many engine management lights or ports to plug in the laptop to get a print out of what’s happening here. It’s you who becomes the on-board monitor when you sit at the wheel. You soon realise that you have to think about your braking in advance and be prepared to do a bit on unassisted steering and even consider using the gearbox more for hills both going up and coming down the other side all of which made the driving of this classic a challenge and a complete joy.
Looking for Godot
As anyone will know whoever drove one of these old VWs, the chance of missing getting this vintage gearbox into 2nd gear, which I did a good few times, gives you such a feeling of achievement when you get it right.
The H pattern of the gears on a Beetle and the vans and campers is slightly angled towards the driver, if you don’t know this or forgot it like me, you will try to go from 1st into reverse and the gearbox at the back will soon let you know with a grind of the gears.
If you overdo the angle you will end up in fourth! By the end of my day out I was pleased to release the clutch and hear the right note from engine and gearbox as this fine classic gathered momentum.
Before I got back to Donagheys that day my phone was ringing as another person was in looking about the camper.
On my trip that day I met more people along the road who just would come up and tell you there story about a camper van or a Beetle, and just after a couple of hours behind the wheel I was doing the exact same. Sharing my small bit of knowledge with the next person who was waiting to take a drive in this classic. We looked a bit like a scene from Samuel Beckett’s play looking for Godot as we drove around Tommy Murphy’s yard me trying to explain that second gear was in there and over time it would appear to them as it did to me appear exactly where it was supposed to be.
Looking back I’m only sorry that I didn’t do what I was supposed to do and write about a classic camper with its pop up roof, its rock and roll bed, its gas burner and three way fridge, but I was distracted by this beautiful, beautiful piece of motoring history watching the petrol hand waving away all day, checking the cylinder temperature gauge and just pure driving.
Happy motoring Folks.