Genuine 1970 VW/Westfalia "Drive away" Tent.

This tent is currently being auctioned at eBay.

Excellent condition, no fading, holes, rips or tears. All clips and rubber supports are in perfect condition. It has a slight stain on one corner of the roof and one pole piece was replaced (see picture below). No stakes or bag. We have only used this tent about half a dozen times. This one was manufactured in January, 1970.

Westy tents are the ultimate cool accessory for your vintage bus. This one is good enough for show! Impress the judges at the next VW show with one of these setup beside your camper.

More info on these tents is available at http://www.supernet.net/~jclark/vw/loaves.html. I just reviewed this site again, and found out I've been setting the tent up incorrectly all this time - the tent has hooks attached to it with "rubber" loops. These hooks clip to the poles perfectly, but that's not the way it's supposed to happen, you're supposed to loop around the pole, then back down to attach to metal grommets which are on the tent. Had I set up the tent this way, it would have been pulled much tauter on the frame. Oh well.
 
 


Here's a view of the front, with the awning up. I didn't have it staked down, which is why the right side isn't straight. All of the rubber hangers and clips which hook the tent to the frame are in perfect shape.
 
 


Here's a view of it with the awning closed.  The outside pull tab on the left side zipper is broken, but the zipper itself is fine. This picture doesn't do the colors justice, they are very bright, no fading.
 

Looking in the "rear" of the tent. This side opens up like this, and there is a "rubber" strip along the top which clips onto the rain gutter of the bus to keep the rain out. One end of this "rubber" seal is ripped about 1/2" where it is stiched to the canvas. Functionally, it is perfect, and has not hardened, as these sometimes do. There is a large flap, which can't be seen in this picture, which rolls down to cover this opening when the bus isn't around. The flap which kind of hangs diagonally is supposed to be that way, when the bus is present, the sliding door opens inside of this flap. You can see some of the floor type canvas pieces to the right and left of the opening. These have hooks on them which attach to the bus to help seal thing up tight. The roof look kind of "saggy," I didn't have the tent staked down, so the canvas wasn't as taut as it could be.
 


An inside view. Notice the full floor, which is made of a coated canvas, and is in excellent condition. The tent has screen windows on the sides, with zip up weather flaps.
 


Here's what makes this tent less than perfect. There is a slight stain on one corner of the roof, which isn't normally visible when the tent is set up. The screen window on the side also has a vertical streak of this stain. One pole piece was missing, and I had a replacement made. The part on the top is an original, the one on the bottom is the replacement. When the tent frame is set up, these pieces are at the peak.


The tent folds up to a very reasonable size. The poles nearest the bottom are about 40" long. On my '70 Westy, I was able to store all of the poles in the area above the hanging/linen closet, except the odd-shaped corner/peak pieces, which were stored under the rear seat.
 


Here's a picture from a VW brochure, showing an identical tent alongside a 1970 Westy. Your's could look like this!