i blame that spaced out old hippy for all my woes
in the spring of 2009 i spotted a t25 languishing on ebay , it was also languishing in a hedge where it had been dumped ,it was in Builth wells and it was up for £600 buy it now , well i did ,the FACT i had a 15% discount voucher from paypal helped and soon me n my mate Simon where on our way to get her , our means of transport being a ifor williams car trailer and his mrs's mondeo .
When we got to Builth we were greeted by the most amiable of ladys , a spaced out old hippy who was charming , she owned a beautiful house that she seemed to regard as just a another squat , around the back were barns garages and endless old vehicles all dumped and in various states of decay , the one we were after was parked in the hedge , abandoned as if it had crashed .
The lovely hippy lady explained that she had been to Spain in it for a few years break , when she was there she had found the interior restricting so burned it on a camp fire , she had then fallen out with her boyfriend at the end of the trip ( excuse the pun ) so in a fit of pique left him stranded in Barcelona and drove the van home in a rage , when she got home still in a rage she dumped the van in the hedge that she had evidently used as a brake and left it there , enter Malc the potential buyer .
To be fair once we had eased off the seized brakes and got her rolling onto the trailer where we could inspect her undersides there was no going back , we posed for a few pics she wiped away a tear , took a final shufty in her for any discriminating evidence she may have left and waved us a tearful goodbye .
On the way back Simon and i stopped for a half at a roadside hostelry and had a better look around her ," gosh you lucky devil " or words that should have been gosh you lucky devil - " its got a full service history here !" Simon had found the service book , we already knew she sounded sweet - result .
To cut a long story short she was a easy resto , a few long weekends and she was mot'ed , my Mrs never took to her and called her naff taff , she was soon gone and the search was on for a bay , a westy was the preference .
When searching for said bay ,i omitted to take heed of some unquestionable facts , bays are older than t25s they have usually had a more chequered past and at some point in their history more often than not have been totally neglected or owned by a spaceman with a spanner .
My bay was sold to me by the most charming of ladys , her cup over filleth with womanly charms and i took more notice of her overfilleth'ed cups than her underfilleth'ed rust ,problem was the lovely hippy lady had been a genuine vw seller , she never knew much about them but she was genuine and what i never twigged was , this seller , the fallen madonna with the big ****ys certainly was'nt genuine ,oh no , she knew her stuff and i fell for it .
Oh if i could turn back the clock and have that moment again , i would take a picture of her and you could all see why i did it , man they - err , she was nice , and i bet you woulda done the same.
In effect the hippy lady did me no favours at all , we bought a van off her that none of my family wanted , we probaby bug gered Simons mrs's mondeo engine dragging her back home over the hills and she filled me with a blinding faith in lady vw sellers ,.
So its her i blame for my westfalia purchase fau paux , not the well blessed lady of Hook , nahh its them hippys again that got me into this .
Rhubarb and all her rot was mine because of a aging hippy - FACT .
Or it could just be i don't know my arz from my elbow !.
So now that your in full knowedge of the facts - i'm a sucker for ****s ( yeah i wrote that the right way round ) and have the IQ of a maggot ,you can see why i have struggled through my resto .
The first thing i bought for the resto was a in car smelly in the shape of a splitty !!,
To say i was green would be a insult to green people , i was naive to the point of ridicule , when the car delivery driver delivered her he kept asking me if i was feeling ok and not getting upset in a sort of concerned but anxious patronising way , at the time i thought it was genuine concern for my welfare , in hindsight he was probably wondering if he was safe around me , after he had unloaded my van and i had paid him he was off down our road in a puff of blue diesel fumes .
A restoration of a classic vehicle such as mine is a task that should'nt be taken lightly or attempted by dimwits such as i , but never one to sherk from a task or hide from a challenge i got on with it , i attacked the chassis rot full on, my laser guided Bosch grinder and me were relentless in our pursuit of the dreaded tinworm , not a thought did i give to how it would be replaced -- but i knew a man who would ,
After month's and i mean month's of welding with a house move chucked in to confuse things we finally had a solid van again ( now don't ask me the cost cos i will lie , my mrs reads this forum you know ) it was then time to get all the peripherals working as they should , most of it i did myself , some of it - like the rear brakes i had done by others !!.
previous to Rhubarbs refurb i never held much faith in forums , i always thought they were frequented by Nobby no mate types and little computer people that wrote in capitals and called you an idiot when you asked a question , but not tlb or eb , nahh , they only call you an idiot when they have earned the right by being very helpful to you .
Well i did it , i got the van sorted and had a little drive recently , rolled back the years , back to when me n Lou pre kids drove our 71 Danbury to southern Italy all those years ago , i don't think Rhubarb will ever sample the delights of Napoli and the via rosse but she might make Borth or spring camp .
Look out for a couple of 50 year old teenagers driving a red n white westy coming to your area soon , and if we're broke down by the side of the road - bring us some milk and pull up a pew
Thanks to all on eb who helped me make the dream come true - you know who you are
