{"id":1713,"date":"2019-04-22T22:29:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T21:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2019-04-23T20:25:30","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:25:30","slug":"roofs-and-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/?p=1713","title":{"rendered":"Roofs and Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear\nVW-friends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you waited\na long time for this post, I know. I was very busy in the last two months,\nprivat and business. The January, February and March were absolute record\nmonths at VEWIB, we never had a VW-season starting as well as this 2019. But we\nhave a serious lack of skilled workers in the office and we are still suffering\nof the big movement we had end of 2017. Due to this sales as crazy on one hand\nand way to less people to handle all this work on the other hand, there was and\nthere still is much more work for me.  Then there was the Volksworldshow in England\nand the Techno Classica in Essen too I had to attend\u2026. so I hope you forgive me being a little lazy in updating the blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank god Mark Spicer is never lazy! In front of the Volksworldshow I visited him to check what\u00b4s the progress of the Samba. Before I present you the new results of his stunning work, share with me a view back in the summer of 2017 when Evelyn and Mark visited me to check out the remaining pieces of the Samba evaluating the possibility of a reconstruction. It was that day when he spoke this sentence the whole process started with: \u201cHmmm, I think it\u00b4s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this inspection Mark also checked the front end of the roof and found some original remains of white color. He was excited about it: \u201cIt\u00b4s a true \u00b451, no doubt, only the early \u00b451 Sambas had a white roof!\u201d I wasn\u00b4t deeply into early Sambas yet, but was happy about Mark\u00b4s expertise. See here this certain scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even most VW <\/strong><\/em>enthusiasts<\/em><\/strong> would trash this piece of roof, but Mark explained why it is important to save it<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lots of moss and a little of white color. I was personally more excited by the moss, but Mark taught me it\u00b4s the white to be excited of!<\/strong><\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And now see\nwhat Mark did about this front roof piece. Is this cool? He saved as much as\neven possible of the original substance and there is still some of the original\nwhite color proofing this here is in fact an early \u00b451 Samba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Mark already fitted the roof piece into the Samba, it matches perfectly into the front he is reconstructing currently. Before you start wondering about the front looking way less complete than in Amersfoort please note that the front we showed in Amersfoort was just a provisional Mark welded real quickly to get the Samba ready for the show. All pieces were hold together by a simple subframe made just for show reason. What you see here is the real deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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  The A-posts and the inner front valance are entirely crafted by Mark, the windshield frame came from Klassik Fab, but the rest of the front will at least contain lots of the original material. <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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  Note the right cab door in the background! In opposite to our show-front for Amersfoort this one here we can bolt on doors\u2026. <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
After returning from England I decided to go to the Eifel again, visiting the city of Mayen where the Samba was found. I created this little poster to put it on the walls in the inner city, hoping to find somebody who could tell me something about the Samba\u00b4s history, especially why it was dumped here in Mayen, but still with Cologne licenses plates bolt on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
  The poster says: \u201cWho knows this old VW-Bus? This Bus was dumped on a meadow here in Mayen in the 60s and I am currently restoring it. I would love to hear from you if you can tell me anything about the Bus\u00b4 history.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
There was zero result from Mayen, but from another place in the Eifel. I received the following amazing picture showing nothing less than a \u00b451 Samba, red, brown, white as mine. I recognized the place where the picture was made right away, it\u00b4s the \u201cBunte Kuh\u201d near Ahrweiler, in the famous whine region Ahrtal-valley, just in the middle between Mayen and my hometown Bonn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The backside of this breathtaking picture says “November 1951”<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The same road 68 years later. Even the railway\u00b4s telegraph mast in the background is still in place even though it\u00b4s not in use since the 90s anymore.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The Samba has occupation license plates; these were used in Germany up to 1956. In the net I found a translation for old German occupation license plates and guess what\u2026. The \u201cR\u201d on the plate means \u201cBritish occupation zone, Rhineland County\u201d, the \u201c658\u201d means \u201cCologne, inner city\u201d. Due to the VW factory records my Samba was delivered to the VW dealership Fleischhauer in Cologne as a demonstration car and the dealership was (and still is) located in the inner city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now have a look on the license plate the Samba was found with. It\u00b4s the newer DIN-style all German cars had to be converted to in 1956. The DIN-plate \u201cK-ER 571\u201d is to be read \u201cK\u201d = Cologne; \u201cER\u201d = inner city. Can you imagine my thoughts I had this moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I noted in the historic picture the strange accessory lights on top of the bumper. I remembered a little detail in the dashboard of my Samba. There was this tiny green control light I never couldn\u00b4t think what it was possibly good for. Now I guess I know what it is: a control light for some additional (fog-) lights, just the same way we all know it from any average car between 1950 and 1980 when fog lights weren\u00b4t standard but an optional extra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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See  here my Samba\u00b4s dash board and the little control light on left of the speedo plate. Isn\u00b4t that most likely a control light for a set of fog lights?<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
A fog light\u2026. Wait a minute! When I returned in summer 2018 to the meadow where the Samba was found to dig in the ground for some parts being still buried there (see my post \u201cmad in the mud\u201d),  I found a lot of car pieces which did not belong to the Samba, an Opel\u00b4s carb and some beetle parts for example, but I found also this single strange Hella fog light I never even could imagine that it possibly belongs to the Samba. See it here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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This fog light I found in the mud where the Samba was dumped is an early Hella one with an odd clear lens, used up to 1952 only. <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Now compare this fog light to the one on the historic picture. I made close up for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 Isn\u00b4t that the very same fog light? <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Is this still a big coincidence? OK, the very same three color combination is no evidence, many \u00b451 Sambas showed this colors. But how many of the 261 ever build \u00b451 Sambas were based in Cologne inner city? How many of them came with this certain fog lights? Call me nuts, but am I too optimistic saying that the historic picture from the Eifel shows very most likely my Samba?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You better believe I will ask around in the Eifel this summer as many old people as possible. I am sure there is more material hidden between Bonn and Mayen! Isn\u00b4t any thriller nothing but boring compared to this story? I\u00b4ll keep you posted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Best regards from Bonn <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florian <\/p>\n
Hits: 0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear VW-friends, you waited a long time for this post, I know. I was very busy in the last two months, privat and business. The January, February and March were absolute record months at VEWIB, we never had a VW-season starting as well as this 2019. But we have a serious lack of skilled workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.entfallteiledienst.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}