My Saturday morning last week started with an interesting automotive sight, when I saw this Volkswagen T1 Kombi with driver-side rear doors, loaded with cartons of fresh broccolini being delivered to our Farmer’s Market. My guess is that perhaps it’s an ex-German Fire Department vehicle. And still working for a living.
In the afternoon, I walked with my dog in a part of town I rarely visit. I decided to take a shortcut through a quiet parking lot to avoid the sound and fury of weekend traffic rushing by on a busy road, which was bothering both the dog and me. Not only did we take a geographic detour, but we did some time travel as well, as within 100 feet I slipped back into the 1970’s with this fine trio: Volvo 1800ES, Jeep CJ5, and a Colonnade Chevrolet El Camino.
Just beyond the parking lot, I slipped back another decade, with this fine 1965 Crown Imperial. But no, I wasn’t actually in the Sixties, but perhaps the early Eighties … behind the Imperial sits a Square Body Chevy pickup, a NUMMI Nova (the bow tie-badged version of the Toyota Corolla manufactured in Fremont, California), and barely visible behind the pickup, a first generation Isuzu Trooper.
Across the street from the Imperial sat another CJ5, a tasteful military replica but almost certainly a late-Sixties or later civilian Jeep, judging from the fender features around the (missing) front side marker light. Noticing that, I’m guessing the CJ in our earlier photo is older, as it doesn’t have that fender detail (side marker lights became mandatory in 1968). Please ignore the image corruption around the rear fender; I tried some digital cleanup that didn’t work well.
Earlier in my walk I had seen two spotless 1963 Chevy convertibles, several blocks apart, both top down and carrying a full load of passengers. That kind of car isn’t uncommon here on a sunny summer weekend, and I don’t even bother trying to snap pictures. But the group I’ve featured here was both unusual and more interesting.
That does look like a former Feuerwehr VW Kombi, with the fairly rare driver’s side rear side doors, so the firefighters could get out and in quicker? Something a bit odd going on in the area just above the front bumper; looks like maybe something there had been removed?
Could it be a rust repair?
Yes it is, and it looks like the sort of thing people used to do in the 80s in Germany and Austria to get them through one more yearly inspection. Nowadays these are worth enough to do it properly. Oh and it’s definitely ex German or Austrian fire fighters.
For folks close to my age, that Imperial will never be anything but the Green Hornet car.
Love the basic, no-frills Jeep CJ5 and the military replica. In the fifties, the military M38A1 was also assembled here, known as the Nekaf Jeep, or simply Nekaf (pictured below). Many of them still exist, driven by their enthusiastic owners.
That Kombi might have been an aftermarket conversion. The left side doors are the same doors used normally for the right side, just turned around. The back one has the indentation to fit around the driver’s doorhandle. I’d think the factory would put the indentation in the front one instead.
Maybe they used the doors from a model intended for the UK?!
Should be reasonably easy to achieve in the factory, with unbeatable access tosupplies of both LHD and RHD side panels and doors.
I wonder whether it needed reinforcement; I imagine you’d lose a bit of rigidity without the solid panel on one side.
The double doors were an the bus is an RPO, mu ’57 #211 Panel truck had these, very handy .
The Army Jeep is in fact a Willys M38A1, the secondary battery compartment is clearly visible in the cowl, I be those are aftermarket replacement front fenders .
We had one of these in *very* good nick on the farm in 1968, slow but dependable and the 24 volt electrical system meant easy starting even in January and the lights were super bright .
A really nice group you found here, what area of California ? .
Used to be So. Cal. was jam packed with vehicles like these plus Motocycles and trucks .
-Nate