It's been a while since we have had a completed Kombi available for sale. We have been working tirelessly on custom orders for customers, but when I saw the opportunity to purchase one of my old vans and give it a make over, we couldn't resist.
Meet Venus: She is a 1976 Kombi Camper with the original Sopru conversion. She is a 2 litre fuel injected manual and runs like an absolute dream. We first owned this van in 2011. We bought it from a lovely older lady who lived down near Ulladulla. It was in fantastic original condition with only some minor rust in the roof. Have a look here to see some photos of Venus the Kombi in 2011.
When we picked her up again in December last year she was a little more worse for wear as she had had some home repairs and some weird "makeup". So, we couldnt resist the opportunity to give her some true love and try and give her the new life she deserved.
We have resprayed her in VW wattle both inside and out and have brought some new life into the interior by painting the cupboards, adding a new wooden floor, carpet, and front seats. Since she was in general good condition we thought instead of doing a full restoration we would just give her a refresh so we could afford to keep the price down for the new owner. In full disclosure as always, we didn't do a full strip back so we can't comment on the body other than to say it was really solid and original in 2011 when we owned it and we didn't need to do a lot of rust repairs this time round.
As for mechanical condition, she starts easily and runs beautifully and will happily cruise at 100 on the highway. The benefits of being a fuel injected Kombi is that you don't have to worry about poorly tuned carburettors making it run lean which means you have less of a chance of it overheating. Plenty of work has been done to it in the last six years and we have receipts for everything. We will also be doing work on the brakes next week and we have just replaced the clutch cable.
On the inside you have a very useable camper setup with a sink and cupboards. There is also a fridge and stop top unit to go with it which sits behind the passenger seat but we have left this out purely for aesthetics at this stage. There is a 2/3 rock-n-roll seat with seatbelts and since it's an original sopru camper with the additional compliance plate for 4 seats, you shouldn't have any problem registering it as a 4 seater in your state, nor should you need engineer approval for the poptop. We have recently passed a NSW blue slip and this states seating capacity as 4 so you are ready to go as a 4 seater in NSW.
Venus has loads of history to go with her including the original VW service manual with service stamps to 1983, an additional service record book for services completed between 1983 and 2012, and receipts for repairs after this. What Kombi can you find that has a full service history from day one? In my 10 years of Kombi ownership I've never found another The closest I came was service records dating back to the mid 80's.
I could honestly go on and on about Venus. She really is one of my favourite Kombis and I'm so happy that I got the chance to give her a makeover. If you'd like to have a look or ask any more questions, please give me a call on 0431-885-082.