Time to Roam Magazine Issue 3 - June/July 2013 | Page 15

Meet the cover models

Mark Stanek and Alex Lonnen became mates though their
mutual love of Kombis and spent many years and went to
great lengths to get their dream-mobiles.
Both have fond memories of Kombis from their youth. The
camper featured on our cover shot belongs to Mark (far left).
He grew up in Sydney’s surfing culture and drove one in his
teens. He says caught the ‘Kombi bug’ again when he looked
to buy one for his son.
He then spent two years tracking down the camper. “It’s
from 1976, the same year I left school,” he says.
Alex actually imported his 1966 deluxe bus from the USA
and had it shipped over to Australia.
As Kombis have become increasingly hot collector items
world-wide, an international trade has developed.
According to Alex, a lot of UK people who came to Australia
on working holidays started shipping Kombis back to Europe,
where the craze for collecting started much earlier, making
them more difficult to obtain.
As prices have subsequently risen here – and the Aussie
dollar soared in value, Alex said it made sense to import one
from the US.
“It took four months to get it here and the electrician I
bought it off in California thought I was mad.”
He won’t reveal how much the exercise cost, although it’s
worth noting that a 1967 VW similar to his sold at auction
recently in the US for $96,000.

Below: Inside Mark’s 1976 Kombi Camper