The most memorable moment of your 1st van?

[irnbru]

A recent FB post about a newbie made me smile recalling when I first thought the water display sign on control panel meant electric blanket .said to mum "this must've been a real quality item in its day.. What is your most memorable moment of your first van?

 

[Feltwell]

When the oil pressure light came on whilst flying down the autobahn, with nowhere to safely stop.

Turned out to be a duff sensor - phew!

 

[phillipsheila]

The rear twin wheels passing me on the french motorway

 

[Larrynwin]

When we collected our first, a Tiffin Allegro RV from somewhere in Oxfordshire we drove along a narrow slightly elevated road and the RV sides appeared to overhang the width of the road, absolutely weird.

 

[Lenny HB]

Ripping the bottom off the gas bottle lock on the madian voyage in our brand new Hymer in Slovenia in 2008..

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Gina M]

Our first van was a Roller Team. I was convinced that climbing into the over cab bed would tip the van up !! I was also dead surprised that we never ever fell off the bed no matter how many vinos we had.

 

[Coastal Cruiser.]

Excited to get my V5 straight out to the van for a spin and forgot that it had the EHU plugged in
Luckily I was on my own that day otherwise Mrs CC would have ripped the p out of me for ages

 

[Richard n Ann]

I wondered what the number 20 was on the instrument panel, after a few miles it dawned on me the mileage

 

[PaulOH]

Arriving home and discovering the fridge still cold and (expensive) meat still preserved - despite a broken battery fridge connection - after 8 hours parked up and a 120km drive... guess who forgot to turn off the gas....

Don't do that these days - The fridge battery connection is now repaired!!!

 

[L' Hobo]

I wish I could remember, it must have been 50yrs ago?

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[cruiser]

Finding A seagull asleep on the driving seat of my old ford transit.

 

[EuroTrotters]

Finding out there was an “F” in gearbox.

I bought our first van, a Euromobil 716HB on a Mercedes Sprinter 416CDi Chassis on eBay. It had only covered 8,000 miles, 3 years old. Private sale from Worcester.

Drove from Worcester to Manchester the day I bought it. Eight miles to home, “F” flashed up on the dash, indicating a SprintShift gearbox fault.

That gearbox was the Bane of my life. So much so, it was the single reason I sold it.

 

[EuroTrotters]

The rear twin wheels passing me on the french motorway

What ?

 

[dazandandrea]

Not our first but possibly our first " Proper" campervan.
We picked it up in August and it was red hot . Wife drove me to Southampton to pick it up .
On the way back i was melting and thought ,christ i wish it had Air conditioning.
I kept saying this to Andrea for a few weeks after we picked it up.
On one trip to Wales, i again mentioned the lack of Aircon as it was hot again.
Abdrea looked at the dash then at me and said " this button in the middle of the console with the snowflake on it , what do you think it does ?"
I looked back at her and i probably shrunk about 3 feet.
" Try it i said"
Wooooosh .
Cold air.

 

[Cal54]

My first van many years ago was a converted ambulance on an old LT35. Bought privately and when I picked it up with my sister we set off to do a 10 mile journey to show our mum. After a few miles my sister took over the drive to try it out and within a couple of miles the gear lever snapped. She vowed then never to drive the thing again - and she didn’t!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[pampam]

Picked van up from brownhills,drove towards doncaster another van coming towards us waved,then a bit further along another van waved, yarooo. We loved it

 

[ChrisSue]

On our first trip abroad after years of tents and caravans we were early at Newhaven docks. After waiting for a while suddenly thought we could make a coffee to drink as we waited. Two brimful cups of coffee in hand we sat back down in the cab seats and the barrier went up. Hand my coffee to Sue to pull forward. Stop handbrake on, Sue hands both coffees to me to get paperwork out, I hand them back to pass them into the kiosk. We now have some very nice travel mugs!

 

[EuroTrotters]

Not our first but possibly our first " Proper" campervan.
We picked it up in August and it was red hot . Wife drove me to Southampton to pick it up .
On the way back i was melting and thought ,christ i wish it had Air conditioning.
I kept saying this to Andrea for a few weeks after we picked it up.
On one trip to Wales, i again mentioned the lack of Aircon as it was hot again.
Abdrea looked at the dash then at me and said " this button in the middle of the console with the snowflake on it , what do you think it does ?"
I looked back at her and i probably shrunk about 3 feet.
" Try it i said"
Wooooosh .
Cold air.

Got to be kidding us ?

 

[The Old Man]

A very old air cooled VW plan van, with the bare minimum fitted to make it a 'camper.'

Dropped the dreaded valve into the engine whilst in Valencia!!!!!

Somehow it kept going and I managed to drive home on three cylinders, to the UK, including crossing the Pyrenees through Andorra. Had to go that way to get cheap goods to smuggle home and partially fund the trip.

 

[dazandandrea]

Got to be kidding us ?

I wish.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Walkingmox]

yes 50yrs ago bought a VW camper and mounted an Elsan toilet between the front seats. Returned north to Paris on the autoroute du soleil at 65mph with our son then 18months sitting between us using the facilities as an emergency . Yes those were the days no seat belts and you could do 65mph into Paris and around the Boulevard Peripherique

 

[stewartwebr]

Waking up to find our very obedient Border Collie was missing. We were a little concerned until we noticed the tip of a tail sticking out the bottom of the bed. We then pulled back the curtain to see what kind of morning it was, only to find the windows were thick with frost on the inside. Poor dog must have been that cold she slowly crept up under the covers.
We have had many motorhomes since, this was a 1972 VW Westphalia Bay Window and we can honestly say we had more fun in that van than any other we have owned, but we were young, free and wild I guess, two young students with a world ahead of them and not a care in the world.

 

[stewartwebr]

yes 50yrs ago bought a VW camper and mounted an Elsan toilet between the front seats. Returned north to Paris on the autoroute du soleil at 65mph with our son then 18months sitting between us using the facilities as an emergency . Yes those were the days no seat belts and you could do 65mph into Paris and around the Boulevard Peripherique

As a previous VW camper owner I'm just surprised to read you managed 65mph. I don't recall us ever getting up to those sort of speeds and we had a few engines (another story )

 

[Landy Andy]

First night away in our first van on day of collecting it bringing it home. Pull up at pitch, pizzing with rain, in the dark. I’m outside turning on the gas, wife decides to open the big lounge window to see what I’m doing, promptly shoving the entire window off the van. Some how between us we managed to catch it so it didn’t hit the ground.

 

[Leltel]

Very first one, I will never forget driving onto the ferry with my eyes shut and hubby screaming at me to open them.......never have repeated that experience

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Walkingmox]

I remember it as 65mph felt more like 90 with everything rattling and knowing that the brakes were pretty useless but we didn’t care at that age

 

[jockaneezer]

The first time we set off on our hollibobs in our newly acquired van and when we braked at the bottom of our drive, there was no heavy "thunk" that we used to get from the caravan's over run brakes kicking you up the towbar, pure bliss !

 

[Rjcamper]

Crashing on A303, no pull off area, very scary, write off and other driver drove off

But on a plus side insurance payout allowed us to get current van...

 

[eddie]

A recent FB post about a newbie made me smile recalling when I first thought the water display sign on control panel meant electric blanket .said to mum "this must've been a real quality item in its day.. What is your most memorable moment of your first van?

Lyn and I were in our twenties and we bought a shiny new Autohomes Highwayman, four weeks later we were off to Italy as newbie as you like

AshVanBitz James & Simon-Alan Kerr who was four at the time (Nick wasn’t born then) Simon waited for a least a quarter of a mile before asking “Is this Italy?” Every roundabout, traffic lights, getting on the Ferry, getting off the Ferry “Is this Italy?”

In the end we put Erasure on, the only cassette we had (told you were were newbies) and the five of us loved it.

To this day, for any of us, much to the bewilderment of Nick and the boys spouses, Erasure takes us straight back to that glorious holiday in our first camper and our first European family holiday

“I tried to discover, something to make me sweeter, Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart”

 

[The Dudess]

Not our first but possibly our first " Proper" campervan.
We picked it up in August and it was red hot . Wife drove me to Southampton to pick it up .
On the way back i was melting and thought ,christ i wish it had Air conditioning.
I kept saying this to Andrea for a few weeks after we picked it up.
On one trip to Wales, i again mentioned the lack of Aircon as it was hot again.
Abdrea looked at the dash then at me and said " this button in the middle of the console with the snowflake on it , what do you think it does ?"
I looked back at her and i probably shrunk about 3 feet.
" Try it i said"
Wooooosh .
Cold air.

Take heart - you're not the only one although not motorhome related. We bought a Fiat Panda in Greece. Our friends had also bought a Fiat Panda and delighted in bragging that there's was a bigger engine size, although they did comment after a few weeks that they wished it had air-con like ours. We suggested they press the snowflake button!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}