Africa Overland in a 1950's Kombi

Through the Sahara - in a 1950s Kombi

February 1960 - A  1957 VW Kombi, loaded with three people (Raymond, Mary & Ivor), depart Bulawayo heading North to London...

More than fifty years ago, two brothers living in what was Southern Rhodesia planned a trip to London. They bought a Kombi, fitted a roof rack, bed and a Primus to it and drove straight across Africa. In the Sahara, they got stuck more times than they could count, Drive Out reader Ivor Wiid writes: Through the Sahara (originally published on Drive Out)

At the Victoria Falls, they met up with two gentlemen driving a Mercedes Benz 180D North from South Africa.  They agree to meet up in Kano, Nigeria to transit North Africa.

1960 - Ken Campbell

Ken Campbell

John Carroll writes:

He set off on 09.11.60 from Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (near the Congo border) with a chap called Joe Thwaites as co-driver (so the 80in was already 7 years old) and drove through Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Italy, France and England and arrived in Solihull on 03.01.61. Co-driver Thwaites went home to Rhodesia from Tunisia but the bit that I like (and I know Toby Savage will) is that the duo folded the screen flat in Uganda and it stayed down until Campbell put it up in Dover in the January cold!

Source: Facebook via Jack Quinlan, Scott Brady & Toby Savage