John, and other history buffs : use the search feature on Tumblr. click on a specific blog pic and be amazed and amused for hours ! mike

________________________________
 From: JRodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM 
Sent: Sunday, January 6, 2013 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: my brother invented the poptop
 
Very cool! Nice to get a real shot back into history on our vans.

Thanks for sharing.

John

On 1/5/2013 9:29 PM, Richard A Jones wrote:
> In 1962 my brother bought a Kombi with split seats and built
> a camper into the back.� A year later, with a baby, he popped
> the top.� This was in Denver.
>
> Here's what it looked like:
> http://jones.colorado.edu/VW/originalpoptop/Splitties.jpg
> [The 15-window bus is mine; I'm the tall guy in the center with
> my back to the camera, age 22.]
>
> Here's a better view of the poptop.� You can see the bed level
> in the rear hatch, raised up so there was storage below it.
> Westfalia never did catch on to that.
> http://jones.colorado.edu/VW/originalpoptop/DPJpoptop.jpg
>
> The best view:
> http://jones.colorado.edu/VW/originalpoptop/DPJpoptop2.jpg
> The front roof folded down and then the rear, which rested on
> the front upright part, so there was a slope from that top
> to the rear.� The pieces were made of corrugated fiberglass.
>
> He drove it until about 1971, when with a second kid, he got
> an F-150 and an Okie box.
>
> Anyway, Douglas Payne Jones (1936-2011) built a poptop in 1963.
> It took Westfalia five more years to figure it out.
>
> Richard
>