The VW that started it all - RELL!

How, some may wonder, did Elizabeth and I become interested in a VW camper. The blame lays squarely at the feet, or tires, of a 1973 VW named Rell. In May of 2006, Elizabeth rented Rell from Bill at Vintage SURFari Wagons.

Crappy camera-phone image of me in front of Rell. We emailed this out to all our friends while we were there.

We drove down from San Francisco to Orange County, where Bill lives and rented Rell for 3 days. The whole thing was a surprise for me to, in Elizabeth's words, get wanting a VW camper out of my system. After spending that time driving around our favorite SoCal cities in Rell, it was obvious the plan had backfired. Elizabeth left that weekend wanting a VW camper as much as I did.

EP and I used the Rell image for our Save The Date for our wedding.

When we set out to get our own vw camper, we looked high and low for the same qualities we liked in Rell - the Riviera top, the early Westy-type floorplan. As we restore Big Blue, you will see us try to accomplish what Rell has, good clean mojo, light wood, light interior, wood headliner. That's why Big Blue appealed to us so much.

So here are some pictures and a video from the Rell trip. We highly recommend doing this a vacation and Bill couldn't have been nicer or easier to deal with...