3 On The Column Classic Car Podcast Meets the Hymer 900 Liner

There are few classics which can boast of being over 9 metres long and 2.5 metres wide, and one of only twenty-eight ever produced.

This week, 3 On The Column Classic Car Podcast is excited to meet Justin, the proud owner of not just one, but two of these amazing classics.

Launched in 1977 at the Dusseldorf show, the Hymer 900 Liner was the masterpiece of Erwyn Hymer, owner and founder of the motorhome company that takes his name.  

Erwyn was determined to prove that his company could build the world's finest motorhome.  He also believed that by doing so, an entirely new market could be created for a very select clientele.  They would want to have the finest European motorhome that money could buy, with excellent German build quality and the space and comfort of an American RV.

Justin takes us through the history of these amazing vehicles, shares the story of his road to ownership, and reflects on the responsibility of being a good custodian of such rare vehicles.

Listen now to hear the full story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hi, this is the Three on the Column Classic Car Podcast with Brian Thomas. Today, obviously, we talk normally about classic vehicles and we have some wonderful guests on the show, but uh in line with the fantastic warm sunny weather that we're having at the moment, I think it's important to think of how much fun a wonderful holiday in the sun in a motorhome would be. So for this occasion especially, we've got a gentleman who has the most amazing and definitely we can call it a classic motor home. Um it's a gentleman called Justin who has, I think, one of the most impressive classic motor homes that are available. They're very, very rare, and I have never seen one in the flesh until literally I spotted one in car park a couple of weeks ago. So without any further talk from me, I'm gonna introduce you all to Justin. Hello, thank you for joining us on the podcast, Justin. Hi Brian, yeah, it's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

It was good to meet you in the car park a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah. Thank you. Which does sound a bit strange, doesn't it really mean in people in car parks?

SPEAKER_03 1:43

It seems that you know classic car enthusiasts do get very excited in car parks when they see good vehicles.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

They do, they absolutely do. So uh uh, Justine, can you tell us about your motorhome, please? What it is and why it's special.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yeah, it's uh called a Heimer 900. Um, and it's uh I I would say um I don't think it's ever been called this officially, but by the numbers, it's probably the rarest production motorhome that was ever made. Um and when people look at it, it's a very large vehicle. It's nine meters long, it's two and a half meters wide, it's it looks like a classic 70s American motorhome. Now, most people just look at it at a glass and go, oh, what a lovely vintage American motorhome. And then some people uh look a little closer and they see a Mercedes badge on the front of the big chrome grille, and they look at the lines of it and they think that's actually a little bit cleaner than an American motorhome. That looks very, very well built. And then they look a little bit at the front and it's quite utilitarian, and it looks like a truck. It's very luxurious on the top, and then you look up and you think that's a great big old Mercedes lorry. So it's this interesting, in some ways, it's a vanity project of one man, Erwin Heimer, who ran the Heimer Motor Home Company. In the mid-70s, the there's a mythical story about the 900, about how it came about and how it came to be made. And the mythical story, and I was speaking to the assistant director of the Heimer Museum last October, and he has heard this story. Sasha, the director, has heard this story, and they think it's true. And the story is that he went to America in probably the early 1970s to the head, the world head or center of production of motorhomes and RVs, Elkhart, Indiana. And it was a convention of motorhome manufacturers in America. And Uwin had been invited because he was the head of Heimer Motorhomes. Now, none of these guys had ever really heard of Heimer. So, halfway through one of the meetings, they looked at this guy, who remember in Germany was a very, very important industrial figure by this time in the recreational vehicle sector. He was an alpha male, very, very important German guy. So he goes to America and they look at him and say, Who are you? Who are you? They don't know who he is. I'm Erwin Heimer. What do you do, Erwin? I make motorhomes. What sort of motorhomes do you make, Erwin? And he pulls out one of his brochures. And at that time, the European motorhome market was very small, quite unambitious vehicles, beautifully made, but very small. And actually on there were essentially caravans on the back of vans or trucks or commercial vehicles. So he pulls out the brochure and he opens up his flagship motorhome double spread page, and it's a 508D delivery van with essentially a caravan on the back, which is a hyma. And he uh the story goes that they looked at him, and bear in mind they're making Winnebago Super Chiefs, they're making 30, 40-foot Apollo motorhomes, they're making Travcos, huge luxury apartments on wheels with air conditioning, microwaves, cooking, everything, shackile carpets. They've reached the zenith of that period of RV makers. And they look at him and they sort of turn their backs. So anyway, he feels humiliated. He comes back to Germany and he says, I won't say the word, but it begins with F. Them. And he is absolutely, he's livid because obviously he's not used to this sort of reception. So he decides to make a supervan. And bear in mind this is 74, 75. In Europe, Europe is obviously they've had the economic boom, things are getting going, but generally there isn't a huge market for recreational vehicles. There are VW campers, there are some higher-end bespoke motorhomes, and there are some sort of mainstream motorhomes, but they're still very unattainable for most people. So most people go camping with a tent in the car, you know, still. Anyway, so he decides that instead to make the rebirth of Heimer, to get back at the Americans, to it's re-invigorate his ego. He will make a super van to show them he can best them at this. Now, uh, so he decides to get a Mercedes 813 lorry, a commercial lorry, very mainstream, meat and potatoes, um, salt of the earth, Mercedes lorry. And he, this is the story, and I'm not sure, I don't know whether this is absolutely true, and I don't know whether Heimer would ever admit this. But he bought a Winnebago Super Chief. He bought an Apollo 33 dB, two of the peaks of that period of American motorhomes, and he had them imported into Germany, and there was a special line made in the Heimer factory, and they started crafting the Heimer 900 using design elements from both of these motorhomes. They imported some American um dressing, like the blinds, the hand woven blinds, the carpets were imported, but everything else was made in-house by Heimer. Uh, and they created essentially the perfect American motorhome, if you like. So all the weaknesses of the American motorhome, the manufacturing quality wasn't really there. The engines were incredibly um gas-guzzling. Uh, they were perhaps a little over the top in design terms. Everything in the 900 is like a European version of that. Um, and it's quite Germanic in lots of ways. As soon as you switch it on, you can hear the diesel going. Uh it it's slow, but it's unbreakable. Whereas the American Detroit big blocks were faster and probably quite reliable, but also notoriously finickety with carb tuning. And this one is unbreakable. So essentially, if people can visualize it, think of a think of an American motorhome, but think of it germanified. Um and if you look, if you take a photograph of the Hymen 900 interior, and you a wide shot from the middle, the kitchen forward, and the kitchen backward, and you put it up against a photograph of an Apollo, American Apollo RV, they look almost identical. But you can tell immediately the quality of the Hyma does sort of shine through. There are lots of little small design changes in the layout that make it really livable, really usable. It's a huge space to be in. It's eight feet wide, it's thirty foot long, you've got a front lounge, which is a dedicated front lounge, you've got a central kitchen, which is a huge, fully equipped kitchen with a microwave, a full oven, uh a mat double fridge with a freezer, a huge shower and bathroom, and at the back a double bedroom with a slide door to divide it from the rest of the motorhome. So it's a literally I mean I you could I suppose you can tell I'm quite passionate about this thing, but it is um it's it's one of those things where you step in and everyone who steps in sort of goes, I can't believe it. They can't believe that it existed so long ago and it still exists now, it's lasted for so long, and it's so practical on a day-to-day basis. I mean, I have this one that I full-time in when I'm in England, and I live in it like I live in an apartment, and it works perfectly. So, um, yeah, I mean you were how tell me how you because you knew about them then, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

You knew about them before you saw it. I I did indeed. Um, and I'm going back about 16 years ago, um, in fact, probably a bit longer, probably closer to 20 years, we had it for five years. Um we were looking for something a bit bigger than a day van that we could actually have weekends away and kind of things like that. Um at the time, I'd never towed anything, so I had a degree of reluctance to have something like a conventional caravan, and to be fair, I didn't really have a car that would do justice to pulling it. And so we thought, okay, so let's look at a motorhome. And then you look at um, you can have anything from you know, a Volkswagen transporter, day van up to, you know, bigger machines, and then we were thinking, well, where do we store it? Where do we keep it? We've got to drive, but it's got to be a sensible size. And um, I actually saw for sale something, I don't know that it was an S900, but I did see something that was probably a size below that, but my wife said, no, it's too big, we can't possibly have that. And um I thought, well, okay, I wonder if they do a smaller one. And we found a chap up in Great Yarmouth who was selling a Heimer, and it was based on a 1984, and I think it was probably known I found out as a Mark Two and a half transit, which I later found out was quite unusual because most of them were made on a Mercedes um chassis, as you spoke earlier, and um it was also quite cheap, and uh, we'd looked at a couple of various different bands, which to be honest, as soon as you walked in, you could smell damp, and damp is the biggest killer of any caravan or motor home that's there because once it's there, it all goes soft and dissolves, and you can't do anything about it. And uh so we went round rapidly inside this van with the um damp meter and thought, well, there's no damp, does it start and run?

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Hang on, are you saying in the 1984 highway there was an my God, that's a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I know, yeah. I mean, well, we thought, well, hang on a minute, and then we thought, well, it's a great big left-hand drive. Um, we later found out we think it was probably a model five two, which would have been a shorter. Does that make sense to you? It was it a flat roof or a rounded roof? Um, it looked exactly like a small version of yours. So the front was curved. Yeah, yeah. But you've got the jelly mould roof, which is the Yes, and we had the drop-down bed over the cab. Sure. And um it was um what we found out was called an A-class. Yes. So it was literally, I imagine that when they were built, it was a chassis and an engine and a dashboard, and the whole thing was built around that. So there was no internal kind of transit bonnet or anything like that, no, um, which gave you a tremendous amount of space inside, and yes, it was slow, it had a transit 2.4 litre York diesel engine. Okay, I think it's top speed. Well, I never really got more than 50 out of it, and to be honest, I didn't try. And the one thing that was really special, as soon as we got into it to drive somewhere for the weekend, we instantly felt on holiday. It was a massive adventure from the moment we turned the key, and that I think alone made it really special. And the interesting thing was, wherever we went, whatever campsite we went to, yeah, people come over and said, Oh, that's interesting. Is that this is one of these hymers, isn't it? Yeah. And they said, but it's a 1984, that's quite old. And you then explain about it being a transit, and people say, Oh, I thought they were all Mercedes. Um we tried to find the history of it, and we found some paperwork from a dealership in Germany that I believe actually supplied the basic chassis, or it was ordered through them, and it then presumably went to Heimer. But it had kind of you were saying about the originality of yours and paperwork and things like that. To be fair, other than a various um handbooks for cookers and heating and things like that, none of which was probably terribly original, um, but there was this original invoice, and um so that from that moment on I became a massive fan of Hymer's and uh as I say, walked into this car park in Canterbury to go into town, and uh I thought, oh my word, I'm sure that's the biggest one they do. And I thought, if I can just ask the guy if I can take a couple of pictures, yeah, and he said, Yes, of course. Jace Justin then told me a bit about it, and I thought, we have a fantastic Heimer enthusiast here, and I thought, I've got to ask this guy to come and do a podcast. So um thank you for coming on board and uh talking about this.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

I mean, but it's good to hear, it's good to hear the the because what you what you're describing is what happens with the classic Heimer effect on people, which is they they sort of know them when they see them, it's a visceral response. Some people hate them. A lot of people obviously go, it's a horrible old motorhome, they wouldn't be seen dead in them. And and other people, lots of people, compl just fall in love with them. They've got style and character. And what's interesting is I'll go over. I mean, I travel um here and I'll live in this one in the UK, and then I'll travel back to France, go down to Spain, wherever. I people are always attracted to the 900 because it's it's quite an impressive size. So size size has its own effect, you know, and then people realize that it's part of the family of the smaller ones they've seen, and you know, all this stuff. But even everywhere I go, the most ubiquitous vintage motorhome in Europe is a high mer. It's gonna be an all it's gonna be a vintage hymer. Everywhere you go, there's four or five vintage hymers, and everyone knows them, they soak in the visuals of them without really knowing what they are, but they know they like them. And it's a little bit like VWs on a real much, much smaller scale. And one that's that's organic rather than branded out of existence. So people uh we started a club a long time ago when I first got into these. Well, a guy called John started the club. I think I was uh I joined in the first couple of weeks, and it was a it was a group of VW owners who'd suddenly had families. They loved their VW campers, they were in their twenties, surfers, and they were based around the West Country, and they had families, they had kids, and they couldn't do the VW camper thing anymore, practically speaking. But they didn't want to lose the idea of having a stylish vintage mentor home with a bit of with a bit of style. Um, and so immediately they jumped into vintage hymers, and this is 15, this is over nearly 16 years ago when this club was so the vintage thing was bubbling outside of the VW world to other areas, and Heimer, vintage Heimers are the ones that captured that very quickly. So it became a huge club, absolutely huge club in the UK. There's a huge club in Germany, obviously. There's two or three clubs in Germany, but there's a massive club which it's quite funny, it's quite puritanical. It's when does it stop? 89, it stops. He's he's very um what's his name? I forgot his name. I can't recognize his name. There's a great blog. Well, god, what's his name? He runs the German oldies, and it literally stops at 89. And I keep saying to him, and this is when there was a colour change on the outside of vintage heimers?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yes, they went silvery silver line, didn't they?

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Lost that brown. They went from Cream and Brown to player Metallica. And everywhere, and so for some people, that's the beginning of the end of the classic period. Very niche. There's it's not because the design was exactly the same, just a slight colour change. Yeah, but I suppose the point I'm making is that woven into lots of people's subconscious is a vintage hymer, whether they know it or not. They'll have seen them when they were young on holiday, when they were quite new. They'll have seen them all the way through from the eight. I mean, our the classic period, uh just to define it, the classic period for me is personally is 81 to 95. That's my classic period. The classics obviously go a lot go well before that, but there this was the time before that period before was the time before the 900. And the reason I mention the 900 again is because the 900 became this pivotal model in how the next 20 years after it was launched in 77, how Dutheimer would develop as a motorhome company for the next 20 years, what their design aesthetic would be, how they'd manufacture, what the interiors would be like, the design cues, all came from the 900. It's like it's like um what's the word? There's a it's like BC and then AD. So but what would you call it? B B900, A900. You know, it's before the 900 things were quite basic. They were trying to very nice, but they were very small scale, low production volume, they looked like caravans on trucks, then they looked like fairly clumsy A classes, but quite angular, quite artisan looking. The 900 came out, and all this was almost like the prototype of all the design cues of next 20-year period that made Heimer the huge company it became. And I'm I mean, visually, I you can see me, but the audience can't. But I'm pointing to some of the design details here, which first happened in 75, 76, and then the launch 77 of the Heimer 900, which introduced this whole design ethic. Aesthetic. And if you think about it, the uh Heimers that followed, the smaller, all the small 500 series, all the way up to the 750, which was a big version, the biggest version they sold apart from the 900, they all shared this same aesthetic, and it was quite American. It was a little American. That's why people remember Heimers because of that distinct design aesthetic. Uh, and in the design language, the jelly mold roof, the rounded tab, the um metal body, the aluminium bodies, the the colours, the cream and brown, and then the cream and player metallica. But the interiors were set the standard for the whole of that design period and for European motorhome design. You come in here, you've got a lounge to the right, you've got a kitchen to the center, you've got a midship's bathroom and a bedroom at the back. And that was the design that came from the American motorhomes, but it was shrunken. And Heimer dictated that. Before that, that wasn't the layout of most motorhomes. Not really, it was a bit clumsier. So it had such an impact, this this vehicle. And I have a friend who um worked for Kartargo in 77 when this was launched at Drüsseldorf. Um, and no one knew what it was. You know, they were in the in the hall, the Heimer Hall, all the other manufacturers were there, Niesen and Bischoff, Carthago, Deathlett, they were all there, the big alphas of the European German motorhem industry. Pilot were there, um, no English, obviously. But um, they didn't know what this thing was. So they're all, what the hell has Urban Heimer got? What's he got here? And then the next day it was launched. Huge sheets come off this thing, and then the 900 sitting there. And this is 1977. Um, and they're looking, going, it's like a spaceship. It's like a, you know, well it looks American, but it's not American, it's a Mercedes. So, and of course, the price was out of this world. It was astronomical, it was for the 1%, it was unattainable, but it was uh it was Erwin Heimer's way of getting his revenge on that humiliation and saying, I can do it. We the Europeans can do it too. We can make a liner class here, and we can make it better and more desirable and more expensive. Um, and so in a way, it's planting a flag, isn't it? Saying Heimer, this is Heimer, this is the future, we will be the biggest. And from that, you know, the rest is history, literally.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

It's quite interesting because listening to that story um where Erminheimer wanted to show the American manufacturers and people that they could do something special. There's a kind of link there in my mind when Ford went to buy Ferrari and Ferrari said, actually, don't waste my time, get out, not interested. So they thought, okay, let's build a fantastic Le Mon winning car and show Ferrari how it's done. Absolutely. Did Ford do it with the GT40?

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Um, and it's a man, it's a man Ford um Ford's um the second or Ford Junior the second being humiliated.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yes, yes, and he wasn't having it.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

And it was an e it was a complete ego. And lots of you know, in those days, nowadays companies are conglomerates, they're owned by boards or run for the shareholder profit. It's a different thing. It's a totally different thing. The people who created the any the big car marks, the big car brands, the and who created the motorhome industry in America and here were men who were in control of their companies. Yes. And it was up to them to decide whether they were gonna grab that future or not. There was no there was no shareholder consideration. They weren't floated. These were private companies, family-owned companies. And the banks would lend the money. It was a simple, straightforward thing. So it was all ego, all ego. And what's interesting with the um the 900 is that was launched in 77 at Düsseldorf, and everyone went, What the hell is going on? What is this thing? Who's gonna buy it? Uh the first buy was the head of Mercedes, and I think the second buyer was the head of Bayer Chemical. So these were the industrial magnets would buy this thing to go down to the Côte d'Azur. It was designed as a Côte d'Azur Express. So you go from Cologne or Stuttgart, and you get on the new auto routes, and you get straight down to the south of France. It had air conditioning, it had a built-in generator. It's a period piece in the sense that it's in its original form, it was completely the work, it was a worshipper of fossil fuels completely. So you'd fill it up with diesel to run it, you'd fill the separate tank, which is still here. I've got the still got the generator built in here, four kilowatt generator that you'd fill with 70 litres of Petra in the tank, and you could run that for four days non-stop, sitting in Saint Tropez with your air conditioning running.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

You know, so and ever and gas to cook, and so we've we put solar on this and lots of things to make it more eco-friendly. But it was the absolute definition of the time, if you think about it. But at the same time, the other manufacturers looked at this thing and said, here we go, the race is on. Like Fort Ferrari, like all these ego-driven races, uh, its reputation and its status. So Niesmann-Bischoff went hell for leather to launch the Clowliner in 1982 as a response to the 900. And we all know, I mean, if you're into your liner history, the Clowliner was sort of probably the definition of the Rolls-Royce of European liners. Um, and so this motorhome not only gave Heimer its next 20 years of success, but it pushed the others to create the liner class in Europe, which no one thought there was a market for. So it's a fascinating story of a man's ego slighted, forcing him to create um this wonderful machine that jumpstarted the whole European industry into another gear, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

And and sometimes, I mean, obviously, to survive, any manufacturer needs to have a degree of forward thinking, because otherwise they're not going to be there in the future. Um but with something like this, they're essentially creating the market there, aren't they? Because um, if it's there, people go, wow, and and they buy one. Do you have any idea of what the purchase price was when it was new? And we're talking when it was sort of launched. What what would it cost new? Do you do you know off the top of your head? Doesn't matter if you don't.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Well, I know that this one, this is in 1982 version, so this is what this is the last of the Series Ones. They did two versions. Um, and this one cost in 1982, this one cost £74,000.

unknown 28:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

In 1982, so which is what £300? It's good it's approach, it's over £350,000 now. So Goodness. Um, but remember, obviously at the time, you can't just turn you can't just do an equivalency in c in in you know pounds, because things are a lot more expensive now than they were then. So cars, cars were cheaper, I think, relatively speaking, then than they are now. Things have taken a jump in the last five years. But this would be a Concord Morello, this would be a Morello or a Concord class or a Veria Mobile. Um not quite Volkner, but you know. But expensive, out of the reach. But it was the it was the flagship Halo vehicle for the rest of the range. So this launched in 77, it took them what four more years, 81. They had the 581 Little Mini A class, which was a massive success. But that was based on the old pre-900 aesthetic, so it was quite boxy, very small, very utilitarian, but still had all the ingredients of a high classic hymer, drop-down bed at the front, swivel chairs, rear lounge, middle bar, you know. It was like a little mini-mini apartment on wheels, and it was incredibly successful, and it gave them the cash flow to develop that next range based on the design aesthetic of the 900, which started in 81. And that was based on, and you had one of those, you had the 84. Yes, yes, most of those would have been Mercedes or Theatre's or Opal's or Ford's. There were some petrol versions as well. But yeah, yeah. I had a I had a 660, a 1984 660 with a Ford petrol. Um and it was it was good actually, because it was a little bit faster, a little bit um, you know, not as noisy. But um, yeah, so uh that's yeah, that's how I mean as I say, the the 81 period with the launch of that range of motorhomes match completely the design aesthetic. So if you look at that year's brochure, you'll get the 900, and then they do it on a page as they get smaller and smaller, but they look like mini versions of the 900. So they were offering a step in to the world. Yes. Yes. And you could graduate as you got older, you got wealthier, more established, more children, you go up the range. It was a family of motorhomes, you know? Um, so he had plans. Obviously, he looked ahead, saw the market would explode, and was prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

And and I think it's fair to say that and and you can look at sort of folds of the period if we go to the sort of car market. I mean, you know, if you're kind of 18, 19 buying your first car, you could have gone into the fold dealership, you'd have probably bought a fiesta, um, yeah, as your everyday car, and yeah, you might sort of do a little better, so you might go up to an escort 1600 sport or something. Um as you develop, it's the top-end cortina, and so there's a whole hierarchy, isn't there? And all of the successful manufacturers, bit cars, motor homes, and I think especially with something like Timer, because yeah, you'd love to have an S900, but you can have your own smaller, more attainable version. So you could probably say something like, Well, yes, we would have had an S900, but it would never fit on the driveway.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

So everyone says that to me now, like you're going, Why do you keep saying that to me? It would never fit.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Of course it's not going to fit on your driveway.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Well, so what I mean, the probably the most famous um or the most successful Heimer of that period was the 660. The Heimer 660. So that would be one up from the one you had, a couple of a couple of down from the 900s. So there'd be the 750. 660 was the absolute bullseye default family motorhome for a prosperous German family, prosperous English family, the absolute default. Everything was there, it was fairly big. You had you could have two lounges. So you could have a rear lounge in a normal cent front lounge, drop-down bed, the rear lounge could turn into a double bed, the central lounge could dine, could turn into a double bed, so we could sleep six. It was beautiful, it looked like a mini version of the 900, if you imagine what this one looked like when you came to see it. I did. It was it was it was a r it was perfect in every way for a family motorhome. And I had two of those and I did love them. They were the perfect size in some ways. But you know, um, but but that was the that has to be the definitive hymer, I think, of that period from 1981 to 95. Um and it lasted, the 660 moniker lasted for a long time. It went right, but they changed the way they made them, so it's it's out of the classic period. But I think everyone has those those mo those motorhomes in their mind when they think of their 1980s, uh late 80s summer holidays in the south of France or in Spain, they would have seen these everywhere, the smaller the smaller bands.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And and I think you touched on earlier, it is the quality in the engineering as well, because even for the Hymer that we had, um it was an in lounge, so it was a day lounge with um like a sort of obviously seats down the side at the back, at the back, and down the other side as well. Yeah. And you had your eating table, which was the most beautifully engineered, an incredibly heavy drop-down table that needed almost two of you, and and a complex understanding of how to actually make it work without sort of losing a finger. With all the levers underneath, yeah, all the levers underneath. But once you got it, it was absolutely amazing. And it made thread base as well, yeah. Yes, it dropped down to the middle of those seats, and then you just slid the cushions across, and as you said, there was your double bed, and of course, you have your drop-down cab um over the seats as well. You turn the drivers and passenger seats round. So, I mean, you could even if you wanted to, um, I'm not sure we ever did because it was so heavy, but I understand you can actually bring that table out and you could almost sort of put it in the middle at the front, but we never did it.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Um I mean I I have to say that that was the first thing I always put in the garage, the good the table. And I got um because you what you do is you I mean, this isn't this is this is 20 years after they were made, 30 years after they were made, you adapt them to modern living. So the classic layout as you step into a 660 would have been a dinette facing you and driver's revolving seats, and then the drop-down bed at the front. Fine. It's actually the dinette is quite a challenging way to live in a motorhome. You're sort of it's it's almost like you're always waiting to be fed, but also it's a bit like you're waiting for a bus, you know. You can't you can't lounge in it at all. And do you remember do you remember the 900? The it's got it's got standalone swivel chairs, part of the design of the lounge. Yes, so it's like a martini lounge in here. It's like a classic mid-century lounge, you know? And then so what I used to do and what lots of people did was do a modification to that dinette where you do an L-shape, essentially. Right. You turn it into an L-shape, so you can swivel both front seats, get a s got a lagoon table, you know, the marine table that you can swivel for your drinks, and then you can all sit around and it becomes a lounge again, you know? Um, so that's the great thing about them. You can modify them without changing them. You can always change them back if you sell them to original. Obviously, now I mean I'm not gonna start ranting, but I may well, so stop me if I do. Never, one for the audience listening, never paint the wooden cupboards in a high.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Oh my goodness. Never.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

No, no, this happens. This happens. It happens more often than you can even imagine. And in some ways you think to yourself, well, okay, right, my one, the ones I'm keeping original are just going up in value. These people are throw burning 50 pound notes. They're ruining the value. But it's not about value, it's about respect, you know?

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

So obviously don't paint the cupboards, just just change the upholstery to something more modern if you want, because that could be changed back. Change the carpets, put some new curtains in, but keep the original curtains, you know? Preserve them, put have them keep things that can return them back to original as much as possible. And change what you like after that. But don't paint the cabinets, would no.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

And uh yeah, I absolutely agree with that, and I think there's a parallel there to having a top-end classic vehicle. I mean, there are people who have the concours where you know they want to keep the original markings on the suspension where they came from the factory and kind of things like that. But um, I think it you're absolutely right with that, um, because part of the charm of that range of vehicles are the fittings, and that is what makes them really, really special, and and the quality of that as well.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

And what I say to people is um is that the the location is crucial. So if you buy a vintage himer in England in the winter, your instinct is to brighten it up. Now, it's not it's it's not designed to be in England in the winter. Take a take a nice long, take two weeks off work, take a nice long drive to the Mediterranean, and when you wake up in the morning, that dark wood will start shining because the sun's hitting it, you're on holiday, and you realise that there's method in the madness, you know? Yes. You don't have to brighten the van up, you have to brighten your location up.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Location. Um, yeah, absolutely. I mean, what would be quite interesting as well, Dustin, if uh if you're happy to talk about it, um, is your sort of path to buying the vehicles, um, a little bit about the story of what personally made you want to have and make the investment into not one, but you have two Heimer S900s, don't you? Which I think is is absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Yeah, I had three. I did have I did have three at one point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

So can you tell me a bit about your sort of route to ownership of them?

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yep, I was um usual story with um working. I have a career, I worked in London for a long time. I came out of London and set up an antiques business for modern antiques. So my business is selling Danish modern antiques. That's what I do now. So my whole life really is original vintage pieces, you know. It's not no, I don't we don't sell copies, we sell original pieces, and it's always very low volume, high value. So that's me. So when was it? 2009, I moved out of London into Kent, and we had a barn. Um, and we that's where we had the antique showroom, and I had lots of classic cars, and I was into a period where I was quite into my citron CX's, so I had some prestige, citron CX Prestiges. I almost almost bought an Citroen SM, and it was getting a little bit out of hand because I was working too much, I was delivering, and I was never using these things. Okay, so I decided, like, you know, I'm sure you have this story, Brian. Cars you wish you hadn't sold, but you I sold them, you know. So I sold these cars, and I thought, well, hang on, I need some, I've got to have something. I've got to have something. I had an old uh P38 Range Rover for work for just day-to-day, but I needed something, but I also was beginning to get to the point where I wanted to make a move to France. I wanted to leave, I was getting the travel bug again that I had in my twenties. I traveled all over Europe, settled down a bit, worked for 30 years, and then I had the bug again. So I was looking at motorhomes, and I was looking at vintage motorhomes, and suddenly, obviously, when you start going down that rabbit hole, the one ubiquitous classic vintage, and I wasn't, I'm not really into VW campus, so I cut those right out the way to begin with. I'm not into that side of things, that cult of those. Um Heimer motorhomes just keep coming up, they just keep coming up. And this was the period 2009-2010. Van Life wasn't a thing. Uh the Hymers uh of the age I was looking at weren't that old, but they were ignored, completely ignored. So they were quite cheap. So my first one was a 1989 660 in player Metallica. So not not the later classic period. But I immediately I went. It was quite a funny story because I bought it on eBay blind. I bought the auction, no reserve auction, 6,000 pounds. I thought, this is ridiculous. This is so cheap, it's absurd. Gotta be something wrong with it. So I went up, lovely couple, went up, bought it. They she showed me around and it was getting darker, and I was phoning the insurance company to try and get the insurance on it to drive home, and it started raining, and it was all I was thinking, what have I done? It was pitch, I it was dark, I couldn't really see it. All I could see was a dent on the front wing. And I thought, and it looked a bit, like I was saying earlier, that it needed to be brightened up. And I thought, okay, let's just drive it. So I drove it home and we went to the garage first to fill up, then I'm on the M1, South. Pitch black, storms coming in, and I had in my mind, of course, vintage, Heimers, Heimers, the Rolls-Royce at Motorhomes. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be like driving a Rolls-Royce. No, no, it was like driving an old it was like driving an old tractor. Yeah. And this is what they're like. I mean, this is what they're like. I didn't know that at the time, but they're quite utilitarian on the move. It was a 2.9 Mercedes engine, diesel engine, um non-turbo, quite slow, 60s. But as I started driving, I started, you started appreciating how unbreakable this thing felt and how relentless it was. So I'm driving all through the night to get home to Kent. Got home, still dark, went upstairs, went to bed, came out about six or seven hours later and looked at it, and I just fell in love. I fell in love with everything about it. And I realized that I my youth was over because I'd fallen in love with a motorhome. And not a fantastically, you know, swish, impressive classic car. I loved this thing, and all I could think from then on was I've got to go traveling. I've got to travel. It's suddenly, as you said, you felt you feel this thing in these in vintage hymers. This I'm sure VW people feel it too, and other motorhomers. But there's something about the I there's something about vintage hymers. They express what you're feeling inside. So I was hooked completely. That was my story in my first one in 2010, that was. And then that was it. And we I joined we formed this club, Mercedes Classic Heimers, which became Classic Hymers, thousands of members, lots, not many own Hymers, because there aren't that many to buy anymore, but maybe six or seven hundred owners in the club. Um, and then and they and so there was a very healthy community, and I was completely hooked on that. Had that for a long time, and then made the move to France, decided I wanted to go full-time in a motorhome when I was in England, so uh had a base in France. Got home one afternoon, and it was a Sunday afternoon, and I'd been delivering furniture in London, and I was absolutely knackered, and I went on the classic Heimer page on Facebook, and everyone, the whole thing had lit up, everyone was exploding with excitement. And 900, they never come up for sale, and I should have mentioned before they only made 28 Heimer 900s. Gosh. So, this in production numbers, I mean, we know classic cars. It's an absurdity to only have a production run of 28. I mean, it's ridiculous, unheard of. So it's it's it's so incredibly rare. I knew about 900s. It was the unicorn that we all wanted, but they never came up for sale. And the ones, there was one that had come up for sale, which was rotten. You could see it, it had been left in a field, no good, needed too much restoration. Anyway, got back, put on the classic uh uh Heimer Facebook page, excitement, excitement. There's a guy called Hugo in Amsterdam who had put his 900 up for sale for this ridiculously unrealistically cheap price. Unbelievable. And there was, it had a TUV, it had an equivalent MOT, it looked almost completely original. Uh no red flags in the description. I was looking very closely at all the photos. Anyway, so I'm back on the Facebook, the classic hybrid page saying, Well, what's happening? I because this thing had been up all day. I got back about five in the afternoon. I thought I'd missed it. Oh, what do you think, Justin? What do you think? I said, Well, what do I think? I'm gonna phone the man now. So I has anyone phoned him? No, are you gonna phone? I said, well, yeah, I thought, oh God, I just ignore that. Phoned Hugo and said, Listen, I'm sorry if this is a bit out of the blue. I've seen you, he spoke perfect English, like most Dutch do. Um, I I want this, I really do want this. So can I, do you mind if I send you money now, half of it, and pay you the balance in four weeks when I'm free to come over? No, absolutely fine. He gave me his bank details, I sent him half the money. And of course, you spend the night going, what have I done? It's a scam. Oh my god. Um and then four weeks later, get the uh uh train from Calet, from Paris to uh Amsterdam, meet Hugo, he's real, he exists. Go to the storage place, which is surrounded by tulips, it was all every Dutch box was being ticked. Go into the storage place, and there it is. Unbelievable. And it looks exactly as it did in the photos. I'm looking all over, I don't know much about them. I mean, I know smaller hymers, but these are different construction these. So but it looked absolutely and look, I was that was it. It was so cheap. I had found Nirvana. So I paid him, we had lunch, we went for a test drive, I went to see his wife, his wife was crying, it was very emotional, they loved it. And then he bid me farewell, and I drove from Amsterdam to Antwerp to overnight, and it was the best journey I'd done since I was a young kid in my twenties. You know, when you have that enthusiasm of a sort of a rebirth of something new happening, um, total, genuine, young, naive excitement at sort of 50 years old, you know? So I knew and you just feel these things are right, you know, and a little bit of ridiculous optimism that nothing could ever go wrong anymore. Anyway, so that was good. Enjoyed that whole process, got back to England, and that was it. So I've been full-timing in this for 11 years now.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Wow, really.

SPEAKER_03 48:44

And it's been um what I can say is I'm just thinking of mechanical, the Mercedes breakdowns, one starter motor and one accelerator cable in 11 years. Oh my goodness. That's it. And I've done 130,000 miles in it. I mean, not a lot, but I use it every day. I travel, I'll go and get the milk in it. I'll um go on a long journey, I'll go down to Valencia in it, I'll come back, I'll go to you know. So that was my that was my um that was my journey to a totally different life, essentially. So it's it's fundamental to my life story now, this I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Which is absolutely incredible. I mean, it it it's interesting to hear that, and obviously there's parallels to other people with reasons why they have classic vehicles and and things like this. But I mean, goodness, this is something you can live in, isn't it? And um you can live with a 1600 Sport Mark II escort, but you can't really live in it. And um I I think um, you know, what you've got there for the people who know, um will will always command tremendous respect. And um yeah, I think uh you know you certainly should be uh very proud of of the vehicle. Um thanks, Brian. Thank you very much. And I think the history, the knowledge um that you have of them, um, I mean it it it's absolutely amazing to uh to find a real enthusiasm, uh real enthusiasm for the brand and for the vehicles really. Um thanks, Brian. Yeah. What what's next for the vehicle? Um, have you got any plans? Because Heimer are coming up to an anniversary soon, aren't they? Yeah. I just wondered what sort of plans you might have. And having such an amazing example of the breed, is there anything that you can do with the vehicle that will demonstrate and and will add to the upcoming anniversary for Heimer?

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Yeah, well, we've got I've actually got another one. You mentioned I have two of these. So the other one is even more extraordinary. So the other one is the last completely original Heimer 900 left in the world. Gosh. And it's this one is pretty original, but I live in it, travel in it back to my base in France. So it's used, it's not a museum piece. The other one is a museum piece. Um it's 28,000 miles, one real owner for new, um, one dealer owner afterwards, stored in a barn for 30 years, sold, literally discovered because a guy who had bought it from a farmer who had stored it in this barn. His son, the farmer died, his son noticed this thing under covers and canvas, um, didn't know much about it, knew it had been there, but just thought it was an American motorhome. And it just so happened that when he was getting sorting out his father's estate and organizing his affairs, around that time the guy I bought it from was on working on the farm and he was digging reservoirs, big plant machinery company owner. He was quite into classic cars, and he decided to make an offer on it. So he bought it. So he really was the second owner, and then he didn't know what it was, and he just literally flipped it on eBay and he put it up on eBay, and the listing was titled Breaking Bad RV. Yes, and again, the funny thing is, this is like 10 years after I bought the first one. Sure. And so I see this thing, and I go onto the Facebook page, and there they're hot, they're all going mad again. They're all going ballistic. So there's a number on there's a number, and I'd come back late again, so I'd I was late seeing this thing, and uh I got the number. And then literally as I got the number, the face the eBay ad disappeared. It just went. So I phone, I thought it's sold. So I phone the number, speak to a woman called Jackie, who's Bill's girlfriend, it turns out. Can I sell again? And he says, she said, I said, hello.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

She said, You're not phoning about that bloody motorhome, are you? And I said, Oh, I said, Are you all right? What's been happening? She went, we haven't had the phone's been ringing off the hook all day. Hey, sick of it.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

I said, I said, I'm so sorry. I said, What? What I said, yes, I am phoning about that, but I don't want to upset you. Or I I'd just like to come and have a look. But look, you calm down, you take a take a breath. If you've had lots of it, don't worry, I'll phone back tomorrow. Can you do that? What's your name? Told him my name. Blah, blah, blah. Bill told Bill. I phoned back the next day. Oh, she took my number. Uh and then Bill phoned me. So Bill phones me the next day and says, Are you Justin? I said, Yes. You sounded normal. Jackie said, Jackie said you sounded normal. I said, Oh, well, that's good. I said, Well, I'm really interested.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

That's a comfort, isn't it, in your later years.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

And um, so I said, uh, look, I just want to come and have a look. I said, I like it. I want to go traveling. I didn't say anything, I didn't say I knew about it. Now, if um only because, you know, I wasn't going to offer any information. So, because again, the price was absurd. Okay? It was ridiculously cheap. So I went up and I'm thinking that can't last, you know. And of course it hadn't lasted by the time, because of all the interest, because of all the he had found out what it was. So the price doubled, you know. When I got by the time I got there, the price had doubled to something a little bit more civilized, you know. Still a good buy for me, but a very good sell for him, if you know what I mean. So I don't know, I don't know what he paid the farmer, but so luckily we'd got out, we'd got to that position already. There was no, you know. So I had a look at it, I looked at it from a distance. It was in a field, and I walked up slowly and looking, and I know all the weaknesses of the chassis and the steel on the 900 because of this one, because of the one I live in. And that we've done the steel on this. We did a bare metal restoration of the steel on the front and the back. So it's been done, and I know what a hassle it is. Um, but also it's quite straightforward. But what I didn't want is to go walk up to it and see a rotten hulk.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

So uh, and I didn't know about the mileage then. He hadn't put the mileage on. So I walk up to it all the places where it's with all the 900s I've ever seen have rust, have weakness if they haven't been restored. It was virgin steel. Virgin steel, original paint. No rust around the corners of the windscreens, all the usual places. Rear frame was beautiful, clean, intact, no rust, no dings, no bangs, no knocks, no trim had ever come off, no windows had ever been replaced. It had the original skylights, the original shag pile carpet, the original very rare camouflage interior, velor camouflage interior, original uh microwave fridge, everything original, original floral mattress, which all looked brand new. Under the dust, it looked brand new. All the wooden veneer was fresh, as if it had been put in yesterday. It was incredible. And then I said, what's it done? What mile has it done? 28,000 miles. So we started the engine. It sounded like the smoothest OM352 engine I've ever heard. Mine's done nearly 400,000 kilometers, my one. This is done 28,000 miles from brand new. Manual. So I'm I'm my heart is beating. I know this is the most original one that exists. It's the last original one. It's got the original electro block in it, the original wiring, the bathroom is completely everything that people change to make it livable hadn't been touched. And so I made him a very civilized offer from my end, a good one from his, considering what I know he probably paid for it. We did a deal. I took it from his place and put it in safe, secure storage in Kent somewhere. So that's the story with the second one. It is the Unicorn of the Unicorn. And it's the rarest one. I've spoken to the original owner's son. Roland is quite old now, but there's a big, he sent me photographs of Roland picking it up from Irwin Heimer at the factory in Badvalse. There's some Cine film of the day he picked it up, and he's got, and this is how I think this is how I know that Irwin bought these American motorhomes that I mentioned earlier. Because as the Cine film swings left to right, you can see a Super Chief and you can see an Apollo motor on the 900 production line. So that's all fascinating stuff for the you know. Anyway, so um got the provenance, uh, there's the original delivery letter, there's original spared parts, there's a letter, very um humorous letter, from Roland, or I think it was his brother, because the two brothers owned a bus company and Hawaii Company, complaining that they haven't got um a manual in English, it's all in German. And they're complaining they haven't got the keys to the two Unimogs they bought at the same time. So that's quite funny. Um, but lots of lovely provenance with it, you know. So it it's essentially it's the definitive example of a Heimer 900. If anybody wants to restore one, this will be the one they a reference one they can refer to because it's completely and utterly original. Um what was interesting was driving it home from East Anglia because I know mine, I know the noises, the quirks, the clicks, the bangs of a 400,000 mile Mercedes-Diesel engine. This was like driving a Rolls Rice. I mean, it was smooth, the leaf springs were bouncy, all the sound insulation was intact and original from factory, so it was quiet inside. And you realize this is what they were sort of meant to be from factory, you know? So that's the story, and as you can tell, I'm obsessed with it. Um, and so we I'm I went to discuss this with the Hymer Museum last year, talking about the 70th anniversary. We're now in discussions about getting it to them for the 70th anniversary next year. That's a key part of a newer collection to focus on Hymer Motorhomes. Um, and so it would be the flagship um exhibit. It would be the one because they don't have one. Which um and they need one. You really do need your the grand, the father of all that came afterwards. You need, you know. So that's that's an exciting, it's an exciting discussion. It's an exciting journey if we do it, and it's an exciting prospect. What is interesting is there are a couple of big Heimer dealers in Germany who keep phoning me and they want to buy it. So there's it's a you know, there's the angel on one side of my shoulder and the devil on the other. But what I do know is that I can't sell it to anybody who won't preserve it in its condition. Can you imagine somebody trying to brighten it up? Can you imagine? No, they will, Brian. I mean they will. They would. Yeah. They would try and brighten it up. So it can't be sold to the general market, it has to be sold to collectors or donated to the museum. So I want it to go to the museum, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

I I think for the very best classic vehicles, I think you only ever become yes, obviously, on paper you're the owner, but I think it becomes extremely important that you're the correct custodian of the vehicle. Because it isn't like buying a new vehicle on lease. Um you have it for five years, it's gone, it it's irreplaceable. Of course. And you have to be the best person to look after that vehicle at that time. Of course. I mean, I think um There is a legacy to it, isn't there?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:32

Well, this one, this one, all of 900s, and this one especially, and I've had it in storage now for nearly four years, um, and it's it's all in preparation for getting it to a place where it will be preserved. Now, the obvious place is the Heimer Museum. So sure. I'm hoping that's where it's gonna go. But the uh obviously the other places it could go would be collectors who, if you're the biggest Heimer dealer in Germany, you and you want this in your showroom, it would be an appropriate place to have it too.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:03

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:04

You know, it's it people, you know, there's a certain as long as I'm absolutely sure that the person who buys it is buying it with what we're talking and regarding what we're talking about, the legacy, being custodians of it, and understanding how precious this thing is. One of 28, the last original one of the 28. I mean, it genuinely is in the classic car bould, I can't imagine apart from bespoke one-off cars. Any there are it's unheard of to have production volumes that low. It's in the niche world of history of this, of motorhomes, of vehicles, of Mercedes, it's a very important vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

It is it is an incredible story. Um we we probably should bring this podcast um to a close. Um I think it would be amazing if we could catch up um with regards to celebrations next year because I would definitely travel to museum to have a look at this. Um I've been fortunate enough to have a look at the one when we met in Canterbury, and it is just absolutely amazing, and I would really, really like to see this uh this other one. I think what fitting best fitting place to do that would be when it's on display at the Hyman Museum if that happens next year, and uh it would be lovely. So I visited that myself, and it'll be lovely to uh go back and uh have a have a look. If we could keep in touch with that, um that that would be absolutely amazing. Um, really, really superb. Um, Justin, thank you. It it's been an amazing podcast. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:02

I hope I didn't I hope I didn't uh go off on my you can get carried away a little bit, you know. I can get carried away a little bit, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Absolutely, and to be absolutely honest, there's no point in us doing a podcast with somebody that doesn't have a passion for what they're talking about because it just isn't interesting. You if they don't talk to me, I I I might as well do the podcast myself, so um, and I don't have your your level of knowledge, so it has been absolutely incredible. Um thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:37

Well, thanks for showing interest. Thank you, Thurb. Thank you. Pleasure when you when you came up, it's funny because there's a I get constantly get people knocking on the door, and it's not me, it's the van. So you're you're quite you're quite lucky I was in a good mood that day. But you look like you you looked immediately like a guy who knew what he was looking at. And yeah, I love it when people with knowledge show appreciation more than anything for the van, you know, and respect for the van.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

I absolutely and I think yeah, it you know, when you've owned one, albeit the smallest type there is, um Doesn't matter. You you've got that passion, haven't you? And um yeah, it's uh we in as everybody, I think we do regret selling it. And um, I think the time will come again when uh we have to take another look. Um we paid for the one we had um going back to about 2007 to 2008, and uh I know we'll never find one for that price again.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:40

No, I mean but but they haven't gone up that much, relatively speaking. Oh, right, okay. And the good thing about them, I mean what I'll say is that if you the classic rule with motorhomes is you never make money on them, you never they always depreciate, they're always a financial burden. The great thing with and it's the same with classic cars, but too uh if you have a passion for something and you're buying it because you have a passion, it's also reassuring to know that if you've bought well and you look after it, it's not gonna ever lose its value.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

No, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

So it you're it's a sort of a no-brainer, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

Thank you, Justin. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Cheers. Bye bye, Justin. Bye, bye, Brian. Thanks very much. Cheers.