Celebrating 35 Years of Just Kampers: JK Vehicles from 1989 to 2024

Just Kampers is turning 35 this summer, after getting started back in 1989!

We wanted to take the opportunity to look back through our old photo albums and image drives at some of the 250+ VWs that Just Kampers has bought, built, or bartered over the last 35 years.

It's also a chance for us to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last 35 years of Just Kampers. It's been an incredible journey, and it's amazing to take a look back at where Just Kampers started out and how far we've come, but we couldn't have done it without all of our friends, customers, and supporters. 

Thank you to everyone who's been a part of the journey so far, whether you've bought a tiny woodruff key or restored a whole VW with parts from Just Kampers!

Here's some of the VW's we've had over the last 35 years

In total Mark and Just Kampers have had hundreds of different Volkswagens over the years, whether they've been cherished as daily drivers, used to test out new parts, or just bought because we thought they were cool! Mark always says he stopped counting at 250, and having gone back through all of the physical and digital photos we've got here at JK HQ, it's easy to see why! 

We've picked out a few of the more interesting photos from the thousands we've got stored up here at Just Kampers, to give you a bit of an insight into just how passionate (some have said obsessed) Mark and the rest of the Just Kampers team are about Volkswagens. 

1980s – Mark's First VW Beetle 

First up is this great photo of Mark posing with his first VW Beetle, from before he set up Just Kampers! 

Mark has owned a lot of different VWs over the years, as you'll see, and a lot of them have been Beetles.

This one looks like it's in pretty great shape (albeit minus one horn grill), but we've checked the registration data online and it doesn't look like it's still on the road, sadly.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s air-cooled VWs like the Beetle were a lot cheaper, even when you factor in that everything was a lot cheaper back then! If you can get your hands on a magazine from back then you'll probably be pretty shocked at the prices in the Vehicles For Sale section, but the fact that they were affordable, simple to work on, and look cool made classic Volkswagens a popular car for young drivers. 

This is actually something we're starting to see happen again, with several of the younger members of the JK Team picking up VW Beetles of their own over the last few months!

1989 – Mark’s First T2 Bay

Mark Reynolds started Just Kampers in 1989 as a small repairs workshop, but what was he doing before that? Well, he was planning on taking a break from working as a mechanic at Henley Beetles to drive his first VW T2 Bay across the Sahara Desert and all the way to South Africa. 

Fate intervened though, and the imminent arrival of his son (Josh, who now works at Just Kampers) meant that Mark had to abandon his epic expedition for a different kind of adventure: setting up his own workshop to support his young family. 

Mark's friends also had VWs, and they went on loads of trips and visited shows in them as well as working on them together.

It looks like this Bay is no more, sadly, as it hasn’t been taxed since 1998 and the logbook last changed hands in 1999. 

1992 - Still Very Much a Workshop

Just Kampers had been going strong for a few years by 1992, and Mark had built up a great team to help him as they worked around the clock to fix up all sorts of air-cooled Volkswagens for their customers. He was also occasionally visited at work by his family, including his son Josh who you can see in the photo above. 

Josh now works at Just Kampers full-time, having grown up around VWs and grown up alongside Just Kampers, but he maintains that this photo captures his earliest memory! Apparently, Mark and the rest of the team pretended that they were going to ship Josh off with the camper he'd just 'helped' them fit in the back of the van, and even pretended to close one of the doors, at which point two-year-old Josh flew into a blind panic and cried so hard he got hiccups. 

He got over it pretty quickly, though, and went back to trying to 'help' straight away. 

It wasn't just Josh who was upset by some of Just Kampers' antics, though, as Mark had just moved them all to a larger workshop in Farnborough which was right next to a four-star hotel. Apparently the guests weren't delighted about hearing Mark and the rest of the JK Team working on Volkswagens through the day and night, but work had really picked up and they had a lot of VWs to get back on the road. 

1993 – Beetles in Malta 

It's a story we've told before, but back in 1993 Mark stumbled across a literal cave full of New Old Stock (NOS) VW parts and accessories from a nearby Volkswagen Dealership. 

The dealership had closed down, and no one had much use for the parts, so Mark was able to buy them up and ship them back to the UK so that he could use them on customers' vehicles.

This huge influx of air-cooled VW parts is what started to transform Just Kampers from a full-time workshop to a massive supplier of parts and accessories.

Mark had never tried to ship so much stuff into the UK at once before, and so found himself largely making it up as he went along. You can read more about how Mark found the cave of NOS parts here. 

1994 – Just Kampers' Final Full Restoration 

 This VW T2 Splitscreen is the last vehicle that Just Kampers ever fully restored, when Just Kampers was still a specialist workshop.

The Split really did have a full restoration, and was taken back to bare metal and sandblasted before being carefully reassembled by Mark and the rest of the JK Team. 

We checked not too long ago, and it looks like the Splitscreen is still on the road and going strong. It was exported over to Australia when its owner emigrated and it seems to be enjoying the warm, dry weather downunder! 

1994 – JK’s Parts-Chaser T2 Bay Pick-Up

By the mid-90s Just Kampers had grown a lot and moved a few times to progressively bigger workshops, which gave us more space for storing the parts and accessories we needed to fix up customers' Volkswagens.

This T2 Bay single cab pick-up was JK’s first major project which wasn't for a customer. When it was done Mark and the team then used it to collect NOS parts from people and shows across the UK.

These photos were taken at a workshop which is now Farnborough VW, and eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that we got it sign-written before the 1 was added to area codes.

They added the 1 on 16 April 1995, by the way, if that ever comes up as a really niche question in a pub quiz!

Years later we got ourselves another T2 Bay single cab which we imported from Brazil, and got it sign-written in the same style as this hardworking pickup. 

1990s – Pete's Roof-Chopped VWs

Pete Dempsey has been with Just Kampers almost since the start, and is a core part of the JK Team. He worked with Mark when Just Kampers was still a restoration and repair workshop, but his talents don't end there. 

As a keen member of the UK's hot rod community, Pete is really into building custom cars. He's built some amazing hot rods and VWs over the years, as well as performing some impressive roof chops on different air-cooled Volkswagens, like this Type 3 and T2 Bay. 

Mark used to joke that if they needed to leave Pete 'unattended' at Just Kampers they'd take the hacksaws with them so he couldn't do another roof chop while everyone else was out! 

Here's a shot of Pete in action, welding his roof-chopped T2 Bay back together, and another one of Edd China posing with it. We've known Edd since the 80s, and his unit used to be right next to ours at JK HQ here in Odiham, Hampshire.

Eventually Edd outgrew the space he had here, so when he moved out we immediately took it over and transformed the unit into more warehouse space for Just Kampers!

1996 – Mark's VW Type 3 Notchback

This gorgeous yellow Notch was a beloved family car in the mid-1990s, which Mark actually got in part-exchange when he sold a T2!
The Type 3 is a great family car - they look cool, they're really reliable, and there's loads of space for all the 'stuff' kids bring along with them!

The old truism about cobblers always wearing the worst shoes was true with this Type 3, though, as Mark was working 18+ hour days on other people's VWs and didn't have time to fix things up on the Notchback.

A favourite example was the offside front window, which kept falling back inside the door after a few minutes. The best 'repair' that Mark had time for back then was folding an empty Ribena carton in half and wedging it down between the glass and the door, to stop it from falling down! 

You might also have spotted Pete's purple, roof-chopped T2 Bay in the background of one of the photos of Mark's Notchback. Pete doesn't just create custom vehicles, he's also more than happy to drive them! 

1998 – JK in South Africa

By the late 1990s, Just Kampers was finding it hard to keep up with the demand for Volkswagen parts and accessories, and so Mark spent a lot of time hunting around the world for more sources of the parts everyone needed to keep their VWs going. 

Since Mark was still working long hours at Just Kampers, he often took his young family with him when he went off to hunt for parts or meet with potential suppliers. This led to some pretty great adventures, including a trip to South Africa where Mark and the rest of the family went on safari in a VW T25 Syncro! 

Being able to travel around Europe and even as far afield as South Africa or California was an incredible experience for Mark's kids, and was made a huge difference to how easily Mark could open up new sources of parts and accessories to keep Just Kampers' shelves stocked with all the things our customers needed. 

1999 ­­– Brazilian T2 Bays

Mark (and Just Kampers) helped import hundreds of Brazilian T2 Bays into the UK from about 1999 onwards, where Danbury converted them into campers.

The Brazilian T2 Bay might be a bit divisive, with some dismissing them as lesser imitations of the air-cooled T2 Bay, they still proved hugely popular in the UK and around the world. Their more modern water-cooled engines made them more reliable in the eyes of many, especially people who were interested in hiring them out or using them for films and advertising. 

We were able to help bring the Bays over from Brazil because we were still exporting a lot of parts from Volkswagen do Brasil back then, before the supply dried up. It wouldn’t be the last time we imported VWs out of Brazil though, as you’ll see!

2000 – Shipping Cars from California

By the late 1990s Mark and the rest of the Just Kampers team were starting to find it harder to source the parts they needed to repair customers' vehicles, and were being asked more often about where to find parts. 

This eventually led to Just Kampers evolving from a workshop into a parts supplier, and one stage of that evolution saw Mark and Pete flying over to Los Angeles with their toolboxes and heading out into the scrap yards around southern California and Arizona. The dry climate over there meant that the hundreds of air-cooled Volkswagens which had been consigned to the scrap heaps hadn't rotted or rusted, and so Mark and Pete were able to salvage loads of sought-after parts and accessories and ship them back to the UK. 

Often there would still be space in the shipping containers which they'd filled with salvaged parts, and so Mark would buy a VW to ship back to the UK as well.

There were some amazing finds out there, but it wasn't without its risks - The photos below are from an album called 'Snakeyard', and both Mark and Pete had a fair few close encounters with the local wildlife while hunting for the parts they needed to keep customers' vehicles on the road!

Looking back now it seems unbelievable that some of these air-cooled classics would have been scrapped, but at least we were able to use the written-off vehicles to keep other VWs alive. 

2002 – JK’s Kemperink

As we've said already in this article, Mark has owned hundreds of different Volkswagens over the years, but this one is probably one of the most memorable.  

We had this rare VW T2 Bay Kemperink for several years, after we found it in the Netherlands. Each one was created by a small coachbuilding firm in Holland, which was also named Kemperink.

After we brought it back to the UK we added some graphics to it, and then used it to carry parts and other stuff to shows and events across the UK.

Apparently we didn’t think the enormous fibreglass box on the back was big enough, so we also fitted one of our two-bow roof racks, to really maximise the available space!

2003 – Just Married 

We took these photos at Vanfest 2003, when we spotted a T2 bay with a cool sticker in the rear window!

A few weeks before the show, a couple got in touch and asked if they could 'borrow' our logo to make a decal for their wedding, and we said sure! They'd recently gotten married and used their Bay as their wedding car, so they wanted to do something special for the rear window. We think it turned out great, and it's still cool to see the picture all these years later. 

It looks like the Camper is still on the road, too, so get in touch if you're the current owner or if you're the happy couple who got married in 2003 and then headed to Vanfest!

We've gone through quite a few different logos over the last 35 years of Just Kampers. They've evolved with us and we've grown and changed, but they're all still recognisably 'us'. 

People do still occasionally ask us why we spelled Kampers with a 'k' instead of a 'c', but we don't have an answer beyond 'it seemed cool in the 80s'!

2004 – Mark's nearly-new Westfalia 

When Mark bought this T2 Bay in the early 2000's it had only driven 15,000 Kilometers since it was new! 

Needless to say, Mark didn't drive it a whole lot! He did bring it in to Just Kampers, though, where it starred in our Christmas card for the following year. We also brought the Westy to the VolksWorld Show, where it drew a huge crowd of people keen to see such an original, low-mileage camper. 

Ultimately Mark felt like having the camper was too much responsibility - every mile he put on it made it a bit less 'special' as it was no longer quite so low-mileage, and so he decided to sell the Westfalia on. 

2008 – Vancake

Here's another absolutely iconic VW from Just Kampers history: Vancake!

We helped to build Vancake, the World’s Lowest Camper Van, in front of a live audience at Bug Jam 2008, which probably wouldn’t be allowed now.

Pete joined Andy Saunders and his team as they turned this T25 into a world record holder in one weekend.

It started out as a 7’ 7” Viking conversion and ended up at 3’ 3” when it was driven down the track at Santa Pod on the Sunday evening holding a record which still stands to this day!

Vancake still holds that world record, and it's still the most extreme roof-chop that Pete has done (so far!)

2011 – The JK Project Bus

We imported this early Westfalia T2 Bay from California, and a load of the JK Team set about fixing it up and transforming it into a really cool camper which we drove around to different shows and events for quite a while. 

Although we don't work on customers' vehicles any more, there's still a workshop here at Just Kampers which we use to work on our own vehicles and to test out parts and accessories before they're added to our range. 

Working on restoring this early Bay together was a great chance to put new parts through their paces, and to get some hands-on experience with making repairs and undertaking restorations that some members of the JK Team hadn't had access to before. 

We kept it's aged paint and battle damage in tact, but treated the entire bus so that it didn't rust in the British climate, got it sign-written and then had the paint aged to suit the rest of the camper. As a special bonus, the writing on the side went from saying Just Kampers to saying Jumpers when the sliding door was opened - something we didn't realise until after!

2014 – JK's 25th Anniversary Road Trip Bus

A whole ten years ago, we were busy celebrating 25 years of Just Kampers by sending Mark and his wife Kerry off on a massive road trip from California to New York in a T2 Bay. 

They started off at EMPI's HQ in California before heading north, passing through a few national parks, stopping in Illinois to visit Mid America Motorworks, and then finally dropped the Bay off at the docks in New York to be shipped back to the UK. 

You can read more about their road trip here, but the Bay performed beautifully the whole way - only mildly complaining during some of the mountainous roads when the air got a bit thin for it!

The only major issue was Mark's shoulder, which ached for months after spending so much time behind the wheel of the Bay!

2014 – JK's Lil Bugger

One of the many amazing things that Mark and Kerry saw on their coast-to-coast road trip across the USA was this incredible VW Beetle Minihome. It probably won't surprise you to hear that Mark decided to buy it and get it shipped back to the UK when he saw it!

Dubbed the Lil' Bugger by its creators, these miniature motorhomes were first made in the mid-1970s by Travelon Industries of Bellflower, California. At the time the conversion cost $2,795, which would see your Beetle transformed with a light-weight wooden frame and aluminium panelling into an eye-catching and surprisingly practical camper. 

The camper conversion design includes front seats which swivel to face the back, and twin beds that could be folded out from the seats in the rear. You may still be able to buy yourself a set of plans to build your own Lil' Bugger from Robert Q Riley in the USA if you email correspondence@rqriley.com

The Lil' Bugga feels a lot like a Beetle to drive, albeit a bit slower, a lot wider, and with worse visibility! The top speed is cut by about 10 mph, and having the motorhome part on the back doesn't do your Beetle's fuel economy any favours, but it's pretty cool in an unconventional sort of way, and definitely got people talking when we took it to the VolksWorld Show 2016. 

When it arrived at JK HQ we had to do some work to freshen it up and get it running more smoothly, but it was surprisingly driveable once you got used to it.

We replaced the outer shell with a shiny new aluminium version, but we obviously kept the flames on the front!

2014 – Mark's 1967 VW Beetle Cabriolet

Out of more than 250 Volkswagens that Mark and Just Kampers have had over the years, this 1967 VW Beetle Cabriolet is Mark’s favourite.

The cabrio is only two weeks younger than he is, and drives beautifully. Mark has taken it around the UK, Germany, Italy, and France on different trips. It's also really popular with his two dogs, who love to feel the wind in their ears while they're sitting in the back! 

It's a really original car, which Mark has been sure to keep in great shape. The original heating still works, and the cabriolet roof is in great condition, so it's not unusual to see Mark driving the Beetle in the winter if it's dry. 

2015 – Mark's VW T25 Synchro Project 

Mark has always been a fan of the T25 Synchro (specifically the 16" version), so when he saw one come up for sale at a decent price had leapt at the chance and bought it as a project. 

The initial plan was pretty simple, but Mark got chatting with his friend Dave Fisher at Kingfisher Kustoms, and before long they had something much more ambitious lined up! 

Dave and Mark fully restored the body of the Synchro, removing hundreds of dents in the bodywork as well as kilos of rotten panels, before fitting a full roll cage, stretching the wheel arches and cab doors, fitting monster tyres, installing a roll-back sunroof, and even a hydraulic tipping bed in the rear! 

Was it a bit exessive for a JK parts-chaser? Probably.
Was it incredibly cool? Absolutely! 

2015 – JK's VW Puma

Just Kampers had a great year in 2015, as we took delivery of a load of rare Volkswagens that Mark had found while he was in Brazil on business. It was amazing to see these classic VWs in person, as they're not often seen here in the UK. 

When they were delivered we all looked like kids at Christmas and had to quickly pick which one we wanted to sit in first! Orderly queues were formed, and unsurprisingly a lot of us wanted to get behind the wheel of this stunning VW Puma. But what is a VW Puma?

The Puma GT comes from Brazil, where they were designed by Puma Automóveis in São Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, importing vehicles to Brazil had been made incredibly difficult, in the hopes that this would spark innovation and growth in the nation's own automotive industry. As a result, a lot of Brazilian sports cars from that era are based on other vehicles which were readily available, such as the VW Beetle and VW Karmann Ghia.

This is true for the Puma GT. Each one is a beautifully made fibreglass body set on the VW Karmann Ghia floor pan, and runs a 1500cc or 1600cc air-cooled engine. Some modifications were added to make the VW Puma GT look and feel a bit sportier, and they clearly worked - the Puma GT won a lot of races, and placed second or third in many more. 

It also won the "Most Beautiful Car in Brazil" award when it was first unveiled in 1966, and it's easy to see why! 

Sadly we knew we couldn't keep the Puma, and we ended up selling it to a private collection here in the UK. 

2015 – JK's VW SP2

Just like the VW Puma, this stunning VW SP2 arrived at Just Kampers after Mark tracked it down while in Brazil. It was in such incredible shape that it was snapped up by the Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany to become part of their display of VW history! 

Although it's not seen very often here in the UK, the VW SP2 is a stunning example of the creativity which came out of Brazil during the 1970s.
Just over 10,000 were produced by Volkswagen do Brasil between 1972 and 1976 under the name Type 149, including this one which we imported in 2015. 

Much like the VW Puma GT, the SP2 was widely praised for it's looks and was awarded the title of Most Beautiful Volkswagen in the World by Germany Hobby magazine in 1973. Unlike the Puma, though, the SP2 wasn't winning any races. 

The fact that its actual speed didn't match up to its sporty looks led to the VW SP2 having a relatively short production run, which has played a part in making it one of the more expensive and sought-after Volkswagens these days, since people aren't generally buying a rare classic car as a daily driver. 

We certainly never drove our SP2 very much, and took it over to its new home in Wolfsburg on a trailer to make sure it arrived in Germany looking as great as it did when it arrived at JK HQ. 

2015 – JK’s Volkswagen Brasília

Mark does have a pretty impressive talent for finding cool VWs for sale, and when he went over to Brazil to meet with Volkswagen in 2015 that knack didn’t let him down. He ended up finding (and then buying) quite a few air-cooled VWs, including this Brasília.

Also known as the Type 321 by Volkswagen, the Brasília was designed to be a larger replacement for the VW Beetle, but without sacrificing the iconic Beetle's affordability. Over 1,000,000 Brasílias were produced by Volkswagen do Brasil from 1973 to 1982, which were then exported across South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. 

Available with three or five doors, the Brasília was a really successful vehicle, but was eventually retired because it couldn't compete with new vehicles coming out from rival manufacturers. 

If you look at the interior shot of the Brasília we imported in 2015, you’ll see that it’s still got the original plastic wrapping on the seats and in the footwell! The Brasília was so fresh that we ended up selling it to the Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany where it lives with the VW SP2 we imported at the same time. 

2016 – Mark's 1950 VW Beetle Barn Find 

You might have seen this split-window Beetle before in Hayburner, but if not then here's the full story. 

This incredibly original VW Beetle left the Wolfsburg factory in November 1950 as a standard model - the side trim and bonnet trim were added later to make it look like a Deluxe. That's not the only interesting accessories it's got, though!

The Beetle is also sporting a set of chrome rain gutter trims and front and rear wing gravel guards, made by the Belgian aftermarket accessory maker Robri.

It's also got seriously rare, solid aluminium running boards, with ribs and a grooves for a thick rubber buffer. The Robri cab window air deflectors can pivot so the airflow can be deflected away, cooling everyone down without getting blasted by the wind.

The 16-inch wheel trims are a seriously cool accessory, too.

After being delivered to a dealership in Belgium and sold, the Beetle had only driven a total of 26,126 miles in the 65 years between it being built in 1950 and Mark discovering it parked up in a barn in Ireland!

The interior fabric is totally original, as is all of the paintwork except the wings. You just don't stumble across such original, well-kept, low-mileage cars every day, and it was amazing to get a real sense of how the VW Beetle we all know and love looked and felt when it left the factory all those decades ago. 

2017 – JK's Type 147 Fridolin

Once you start checking out rare Volkswagens, it gets harder and harder to resist buying them, and once you start buying them people keep sending you more For Sale ads, and then you end up with a super cool VW Kleinlieferwagen! It's not a bad problem to have, but we felt we should warn people! 

The Volkswagen Type 147 Kleinlieferwagen (or Fridolin) was a panel van built by VW and mainly sold by them to the German post office (Deutsche Bundespost) to be used as postal delivery vehicles. 

Just over 6,000 of them were built in total, which isn't very many at all considering Volkswagen was creating them for ten years between 1964 and 1974. 

The first Fridolins were built using the floorpan from a VW Beetle Cabriolet, but plans were changed and the Type 14 VW Karmann Ghia's floorpan was used later on as it was wider. It also features parts from the Beetle, Type 3, and T2, which makes it a really interesting collection of components! 

We absolutely loved having ours, and took it to different shows and events around the UK where it always drew a crowd. 

2017 – Just Kampers Insurance Giveaway Ghia

Over the years we've teamed up with our colleagues over at Just Kampers Insurance to give away different VW campers and other cool Volkswagens, and the 1966 VW Karmann Ghia Cabriolet we gave away in 2017 is one of our favourites. 

We were all sad to see the Ghia go, but it turned out that it was going to a great home as it's new owner had been into classic Volkswagens since the early 1990s.

Paul came along to JK HQ with his brother, Andy, to collect the Ghia and have a look around Just Kampers, and we were glad to hear they were dead set on keeping the '66 Cabriolet, even if it did mean Paul had to sell one of his project vehicles to make space for it! 

2017 – JK's 1956 Oval Beetle Mille Miglia Racer

Back in 2017 I was part of a team from Just Kampers who took part in the epic Mille Miglia - a 1,000-mile race around Italy in pre-1957 cars. We bought this 1956 Oval Beetle for the event, and kitted it out with an Okrasa engine and a few other racing accessories and upgrades, to make sure it ran smoothly. 

We dubbed the Oval 'Jack the Giant Slayer', as it performed amazingly well during the race and didn't miss a beat, allowing us to move from the back of the pack in position 429 and climb up to position 226 by the time the race came to an end. 

Mark's son Josh was the navigator during the race, and still drives Jack as much as he can, including driving him over to Belgium for European Bug-In this summer and parking the Oval up on the EMPI stand at the event.

Jack has also been to Hessisch in Germany and to other shows all over the UK, as well as being driven by me and others to events, the beach, or just to work and back!

2018 – Just Kampers Insurance Giveaway Bay

When we teamed up with our colleagues over at Just Kampers Insurance to give away a Volkswagen camper in 2018, we started out with a pretty unassuming 1977 VW T2 Bay with a Westfalia interior and a fairly long list of things which needed to be worked on! 

Luckily, we've never lost the knack or the enthusiasm for restoring classic VWs, and while we haven't worked on customers' vehicles for a long time now there's still an on-site workshop here at Just Kampers that we use all the time. Once the Bay was delivered, we got it up on the lift and had a good look under, around, and through it to see exactly what needed to be done. 

Fixing up the Westy was a great opportunity to test out new parts, as well as letting us show some of the younger members of the JK Team how everything comes apart and goes back together again. By the time we'd finished restoring the Bay and getting it repainted, it was looking gorgeous and we were sad to see it go! 

2019 – JK's T2 Split Postal Bus

If you’re a VW mail-order company shipping out tens of thousands of orders and you come across a T2 Splitscreen Royal Mail Bus this well restored, you have to buy it, right? 

That was our excuse, anyway! 

The original for sale advert on the post bus said that it was an extremely rare 1959 Volkswagen Type 2 Swivel-Seat Kombi, and one of just eleven known to still be around. The driver’s seat in the front rotated, to allow the postie to get in and out more easily, which is a cool touch.

It was originally found in the woods in Canada, before being bought by a VW enthusiast who discovered that under the coat of blue house paint was a hand-painted Volkswagen script and the Canadian Royal Mail crest. The Spiltscreen was restored by John Jones at Kustom Coach Werks in Grand Junction, Colorado, and was in amazing shape when we bought it. 

The Post Bus was a really eye-catching VW, and it was great to be able to use it for all sorts of photos, measurements, and testing, but in the end it was such a rare piece of air-cooled history, and so beautifully restored, that we let it move on to a new owner who would cherish it. 

2019 – JK’s Dannenhauer & Stauss

You might have seen the Dannenhauer & Stauss at the VolksWorld Show in 2022, where it sat drawing crowds in the foyer after its restoration, but Mark picked it up in 2019.

He found it while hunting for a unique project to celebrate 30 years of Just Kampers, and like so many restoration projects things quickly spiralled, and it went from a quick and functional tidy-up to a complete nut-and-bolt restoration in no time.

About 3,000 hours of hard work later, the 1950 Dannenhaur & Stauss cabriolet was given the Dedication to Restoration award at VolksWorld 2022!

2019 – JK's VW Miag 

This incredibly rare Miag Platform Truck is one of only two we know of which are still going, and was originally powered by a 25 horsepower air-cooled engine and gearbox from an early VW Beetle.

It was built for moving goods around in warehouses, factories, or military bases, and so isn’t the fastest thing around, but it did have cable-operated drum brakes front and rear as well as full electrics, so it could be driven on the road if we’d felt like taking our lives in our hands!

Our MIAG was owned by the French Army, who used it on an airbase, so it’s less-than-exciting 15mph / 25kmph top speed wasn’t an issue. 

We sent the 25hp engine to our friends at The VW Engine Company, for one of their ‘Turnkey’ engine rebuilds, but sadly the MIAG’s engine case and crank were beyond repair. Thankfully they had a 30hp engine in their stores, so we were able to get the MIAG moving again.

This is a classic example of Mark finding a rare or obscure piece of classic Volkswagen history and leaping at the chance to own it.

2019 – Lowlight VW Karmann Ghia

After Mark and his son entered the Mille Miglia in their 1956 Oval Beetle in 2017, Mark’s daughter Meg wanted to give racing a go! The two of them entered the Gran Premio Nuvolari in this stunning 1959 lowlight Ghia, which had a 1300cc Denzel engine fitted, and had a great time. 

The Karmann Ghia had previously belonged to one of Mark's friends in California, Chris Cocks, who had shown Mark around the Ghia and demonstrated the awesome Denzel engine. It came up for sale a few years later, after Chris had sadly passed away, and Mark knew he needed it in his life as soon as he saw the for sale advert. 

After speaking to a few people who knew the history of the car, Mark bought the Ghia unseen and shipped it over to the UK from California. Obviously buying a vehicle without having a proper look at yourself is exactly the sort of thing Mark would always tell people not to do, but this was a special case!

Once it arrived back in the UK, Mark spent a long time getting the Ghia back into top shape, as it had spent quite a long time sitting around not doing much. Classic VWs (like all classic cars) love to be driven, and faults tend to develop from not using them more often than from firing them up and hitting the road. 

By the time Mark and Meg had crossed the finish line of the 2019 Gran Premio Nuvolari, they'd beaten 124 other racers, and Meg claims she developed 124 grey hairs from the stress!

You can click here to read more about the Denzel-engined Ghia and the Gran Premio Nuvolari. 

2020 – Mark's Hazet Toolbox Wagon

Okay it's not technically a Volkswagen, but Mark built this cool wagon for his grandson’s 1^st birthday, having dreamed up the idea while on a long drive one day.

It's made from a Hazet toolbox and parts from a radio flyer, and even has a little lap belt to keep the kids safe. Mark also added a little steering wheel to it later on, which was great for stopping the kids trying to grab things as they wheeled past!

He used it to cart his grandkids around the garden and different VW shows before they both got too big for it, and we brought it with us to European Bug-In to help us carry stuff around. It got a lot of attention at the show, with loads of people taking photos of it, so clearly other people think it's just as cool as we do! 

2022 – Project 22 

We transformed this entry-level VW T6.1 from a bare van into a dream camper for under £10,000 and filmed loads of how-to videos along the way! 

Project 22 came about as a way for us to test out new products for converted campervans before we added them to stock, and as a way of filming jobs like fitting new windows to your van, or installing insulation inside your camper. 

Our range is always growing, and we've added a lot of campervan conversion parts over the last few years, but we always want to make sure that the products we're selling are good quality, simple to use, and will last for years to come. That's why we've often got a 'project vehicle' on the go in the on-site workshop here at JK HQ - there's no better way to test out new stuff then by fitting it yourself!

Once all the work was completed on Project 22, the T6.1 was really put through its paces as a daily driver for Steve from the JK Team, which was a great way of identifying and fixing any issues with. Luckily, the only issue it had was an acorn which somehow got itself wedged in the Fiamma awning rail on the side of the van, which would roll its way forward when the camper slowed down, and then roll backwards when it sped up. It took us a long time to identify the issue, and we're still not sure how the acorn got in there, but we haven't ruled out squirrels. 

Project 22 was completely transformed from an otherwise empty van to having the bulkhead removed, new side windows added, insulation, carpet, curtains, kitchen units, a cooker, a sink, a fridge, an electric rock'n'roll bed and more! 

You can watch all of the how-to videos we filmed while working on Project 22 on our YouTube channel, along with hundreds more videos and guides. 

If you want to read more about Project 22 and how we managed to transform it for less than £10,000 you can click here for more information. 

2022 – JK's South African 1972 T2 Bay Microbus 

We scooped up this gorgeous Microbus when Mark saw it come up for sale, because we fell in love with how well it drove! 

The bus was built in South Africa, but we'd bought it from down the road from JK HQ. It was running a 1700cc Type 3 'Pancake' engine and handled like a dream - probably because it was so original.

We've all owned our fair share of modified VWs, especially T2 Bays, and this 1972 Microbus was slightly lowered, but it was a dramatically different ride to a slammed and narrowed bus which we all really enjoyed! 

We didn't think to take any photos of it at the time, but the right-hand drive Bay had a really cool ambulance-style side bar which extended out automatically when you opened the sliding door! This is a relatively rare accessory and one that always got a lot of comments when we parked up and opened the slider. 

2023 – JK's Magnum Edition VW T25

A few years ago we spotted this Magnum Edition T25 for sale, and snapped it up because it's such a cool, rare camper. The interior was excellent, if a little worn, but it felt painfully slow when we took it for a spin along the country lanes around JK HQ, so we decided to swap the stock 1600cc engine for a 2000cc unit from a VW Golf GTi!

It was a really simple engine swap, and allowed us to expand our range of engine conversion parts for the VW T25, which is a win-win. We also filmed a how-to video in case anyone else felt like doing a similar swap on their own T25. 

The Magnum Edition VW T25 has a load of cool, luxurious features like a built-in fridge, rock & roll bed, sound-proofing over the engine compartment, a folding table and lamp, and even cup holders! 

With the engine swap completed, we used the T25 to test a load of parts we were looking at adding to our range, and then sold the camper on so we could bring in our next project. 

You can click here to read more about our engine-swapped Magnum Edition T25. 

2024 – JK and EMPI T2 Bay

Our latest project vehicle hasn’t taken up nearly as much time, as we got this 1971 T2 Bay customised and ready for European Bug-In 2024 in short order!

We originally bought it from Type 2 Detectives and then kitted it out with a whole new 1941cc long block engine from EMPI, as well as loads more upgrades and accessories. You’ll have seen it on the EMPI stand at EBI earlier this summer, where it drew a steady stream of admirers.

If you want to see more of the event then click here to see our photos from European Bug-In 2024. 

Future JK Project Vehicles

I don’t know what our next VW will be, but it’s great to look back over 35 years of Just Kampers history and see that Mark and the rest of the JK Team are still as enthusiastic about Volkswagens now as we were back in 1989. 

I'm sure it won't be long before we spot another VW that's too good to pass up, or we need to get a new vehicle to test new parts and accessories on, so watch this space!