VW Camper - The Inside Story: A Guide to VW Camping Conversions and Interiors 1951-2005 [Hardcover]

David Eccles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2006

This book documents and celebrates the many different camping conversions built on the Volkswagen Transporter and Microbus base across five decades. Until the advent of the new T5 generation in 2004, Volkswagen never made a factory-fitted camper, preferring to approve conversions carried out by firms such as Westfalia, Devon, Dormobile, Sundial and Danbury. However, many other different companies offered conversions on the VW base and the models produced by over forty different converters are described and pictured here.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Eccles has been around VW campers since he and his wife, Cee, journeyed to India and back in 1976, travelling and living in a 1967 Canterbury Pitt.  They have owned their current VW Camper, a 1966 walk-through Devon Caravette since 1978.  After twenty years of family holidays, the camper is fully restored and is used for travelling to VW shows and events.  David is well known for his passion for the VW Bus and is currently the editor of Volkswagen Camper and Commercial magazine.  He is a resident of Leicestershire, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: The Crowood Press; First edition (April 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861267630
• ISBN-13: 978-1861267634
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #292,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative, March 29, 2007

By 

Jeremy Edmondson (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VW Camper - The Inside Story: A Guide to VW Camping Conversions and Interiors 1951-2005 (Hardcover)

Here in the US we see mostly Westfalia's and Riviera's, with some Sportsmobiles and Sundials etc....This book is amazing in the number of conversions covered. The european models going way way back to the 50's! You certainly learn about more conversion companies and see many different configurations.

Very, very cool book.

I highly recommend it if you are interested in these great busses.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for someone restoring a bus, January 19, 2009

By 

P. Chang "Photographer-designer-foodie" (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: VW Camper - The Inside Story: A Guide to VW Camping Conversions and Interiors 1951-2005 (Hardcover)

I bought this as a present for my boyfriend, who is planning on buying and restoring a early 1970s VW bus soon. He absolutely loved this book. It has a wealth of information - and lots of great photos - about the interior of every type of bus made. This type of information is difficult to find (most information available is about the engine, body, etc). It has information about the interiors of both stock and custom buses, which is a great source of creative inspiration since he is planning to customize his own bus.

I also bought his this die cast model of a bus as part of the gift set:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001JIGSEO/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_img

I would definitely recommend getting both the book and the model for any VW bus fan, or anyone who is thinking about customizing their own bus.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great picture history on VW van/bus/transporter conversions to camper., February 27, 2011

By 

David Greene "nakeddave" (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: VW Camper - The Inside Story: A Guide to VW Camping Conversions and Interiors 1951-2005 (Hardcover)

I recently reviewed a book called "How to convert your VW Bus or Van to Camper". That book is garbage and completely devoid of information to help you actually do this.

THIS book however is a wealth of knowledge. It shows many different layouts from back in the very beginning to the end, all different sorts of conversions too. In my opinion it's more information for someone who would be trying to figure out how to convert their own van than the one supposedly written for that.

This is basically a picture history with good documentation on the campers available in Europe and the USA which were based on the Volkswagen Bus/Transporter. The author is very knowledgeable, the pictures are all documented with good information, and it's a beautiful book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. I bought this probably a year ago or so and still pick it up and thumb through it from time to time, it's a nice book to have around.