Window of opportunity

There was a time that Bay Window Westfalia campers were pretty rare in the UK. First of all, you couldn’t even buy a RHD Westy in the UK until the 1973 model year. Add to this the fact that they were pretty expensive from Volkswagen’s main agents, especially in comparison with more abundant Devons and Danburys, and you have a fairly uncommon sight on our roads.

This has all changed in recent years, though, due to the massive amount of Westfalia campers having been imported to the UK from the USA. Now, as far as Bay Window campers go, I would say they outnumber most if not all other models.

However, an Achilles’ heel of the Westy conversion is the side louvred windows. Sure, they worked great when new but more often than not with 40 years of use there’s a good chance they will have become seized solid, let in draughts or leak like a sieve. So, when we had to tackle the latter problem recently on our import ‘73