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Meet Hazel Armstrong

Our 1964 Volkswagen Kombi, located in Pottsville on the beautiful North Coast of New South Wales. Hazel has been part of our family since 2001, when we picked her up as a wreck needing a ground up restoration. 3 years of blood, sweat and tears put her back on the road in the Netherlands and since then we enjoyed some amazing trips across Europe. In September 2020, she finally arrived in Australia to rejoin our family of six!

Hazel has been the vehicle of choice for many unforgettable wedding, formal and event; she even featured as the backdrop for a global advertising campaign! Our family run business operates a chauffeured limousine service anywhere near Byron Bay, Tweed, the Gold Coast and Hinterlands, ensuring you can move between locations in style. Get in touch to discuss your unique request and we'll make sure we tailor it to your every need. 

Annemarie & Quentin

Kombi Hire

Hazel was restored with the plan to have a reliable camper van to our own liking, it never occurred to us that people would actually like to hire our kombi until we received Luke and Lindsey’s request to use Hazel for their wedding.

Depending on availability, Hazel can be used for*:

  • Advertising
  • Events
  • Formals
  • Photoshoots
  • Weddings
  • Television and Movies

Options include:

  • Standard layout with folding seat in back (4 passengers)
  • With middle seat (7 passengers) 
  • With or without full length roof rack

*Hire is inclusive of a driver.

Just came across your site while looking up restoration tips for a splitty, amazing job you guys have carried out! You have a mint example of how a VW should look and be used. Best of luck in the future with her. Regards Ciaran

Compared to the rest of the bus, the cargo doors were still in a very acceptable condition. Besides a big dent in the left door and rusted lower bottoms of both the doors, there was not much we could do to prepare them for paint.

Similar to the other doors, both cargo doors were sandblasted to make sure that what we knew exactly what we were working with: stripped from paint, it was pretty self-evident that the lower part that holds the door seal required replacing on both cargo doors. To ensure we removed all remaining rust after sandblasting, we followed the below procedure:

  1. Remove all rust by grind back to bare metal
  2. Aply a rust converter and leave to react for 48 hours
  3. Cover with zinc or copper coating
  4. Finish with metal primer

After all remaining rust received the above treatment, I started preparations for both door bottom parts. I ended up fabricating them myself by folding a piece of sheet metal into angle of approximately 95 degrees. I spot-welded a 12 mm strip on one side of this bar to recreate the original double door bottom. I then made the water drain by placing the strip on a vice; with the vice opened to the with of the original drain’s size, carefully hammer the drain into the new panel.

 

 start fitting the new bottom. I made the strip slightly longer than required, so I could fold the excessive material around the edges of the door; saves you from welding additional separate pieces to fill up the gaps.

 

Be sure you use air to cool the metal when finishing the weld that attaches the bottom to the door skin. This will prevent the metal to deform due to the heat generated from welding. One of my friends tin plated all the welds to ensure that rust will stay away for a while; tin files up the little wholes that might be left from my inferior welding ;-) After we degreased the metal we applied the filler and sanded it all down to a nice, paint ready, result.

RESTORATION PAGES

3 years of fully documented restoration pages for your inspiration or discouragement... 

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