EVENTS DIARY

February was a hectic month for staff at Southland’s Bill Richardson Transport World. Not only did they launch a new event — the annual Speedfest commemorating Southlander George Begg and a new display of his racing cars at Classic Motorcycle Mecca — they were also well underway preparing a new display at the museum.

The team has scoured the country looking for Volkswagen models up to 1975 for the display, which runs from 10 April through to 31 July.

Usingtransport World director Jocelyn O’donnell’s Kombi collection as a base, the museum’s other resident died-in-the-wool VW fan, Darren Robbie, has worked hard to get some other rare models along. “It looks like we should have at least 25 VWS in the display in the main hall,” Darren says.

His pet project has been ‘Florence’, the former Southland Hospital Ambulance, which was located still running in the North Island. The ambulance has received a lot of attention from the museum’s workshop staff, headed by collection manager Graeme Williams. Florence now boasts a complete interior, just as it was back in the day.

“We have some very early VWS, some of which were built in Wolfsburg [Germany] and then later ones in Hanover, which became the main factory for Kombis,” he said.

The team also hope to have a Formula First VW racing car in the display.

Many of the vehicles have received work to bring them up to standard, while others are in the process of being tidied up. A top condition Kombi today commands very high prices, especially if they are the early ‘split-window’ models. An Australian 1960 Kombi Samba Bus sold for a record A$202,000 in 2015. These were assembled at VW’S Clayton plant in Sydney, while New Zealand Volkswagens were assembled in Otahuhu from 1954 until 1975.