NASkeet
Samba Member
Joined: April 29, 2006
Photos: 1111
Location: South Benfleet, Essex, UK
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| VW Beetles & other cars on route from England to Morocco in 1969 |
Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2024 12:11 pm Views: 42
Rating: Not rated
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In 1969, my parents and I (then aged about 13) went on an overland "adventure holiday" from southern England to Morocco (including the Sahara Desert & Atlas Mountains), via France & Spain, with a small travel company called "Safari".
We travelled in a relatively new (G-suffix registration year), blue-coloured, 12-seater, long wheel-base (109 inches), Series IIA Land Rover, with full-length roof rack for luggage & camping equipment (including inflatable 3-man igloo tents with integral ground-sheets), and two spare wheels [one on the dished-bonnet (i.e. dished-hood in USA parlance!?!) spare-wheel carrier and the other on the rear-door spare-wheel carrier].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover_series#Series_IIA
Accompanying us was another vehicle belonging to "Safari", which is the red first-generation Ford Transit diesel minibus with double rear wheels, alongside the blue Series IIA Land Rover in the top picture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit#First_generation_(1965)
On route I saw two white-coloured VW Type 1 Beetles of that era, parked at the side of the road; shown in the top & middle photographs.
In the top photograph, I'm the boy sitting on the Land Rover's roof rack with my legs dangling over the side. There is a VW Beetle clearly visible between what looks like a white Renault Dauphin (another car with rear-mounted air-cooled engine) and a brown car which resembles a Hillman Husky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Dauphine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillman_Husky
In the middle photograph of a street-scene in Morocco, I'm the boy standing on the Land Rover's right-hand front wing (i.e. fender in USA parlance!?!). The bearded man with spectacles, in white T-shirt & blue-jeans, standing to the right and looking up at me, is my father, who at that point in history had a white 1964 VW 1200 Type 1 Beetle, bought new in 1964 from SMT in Dundee, Scotland. There is one VW Beetle barely visible behind the man on the bicycle, to the left of my father. |
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