Chris Hansen’s rare ‘58 Splittie pickup has been in the family for more than 60 years, a history spanning three generations and two continents.
As a youngster growing up in 1980s San Diego, California, he would visit his aunt and uncle and see the truck piled high with “boulders, rubbish and tree trunks”.
“I saw the bullet indicators, and I knew that meant it was an early one, and I thought ‘don’t they realise what they have?’” says Chris, now 56 and living in Norfolk. “It was just used for taking stuff to the dump, but by then it was pretty beaten up.
“They’d had it for as long as I can remember, all my life. Before that it was owned by my aunt’s parents, used as a truck for the shop they ran in Upland. I believe it was two or three years old when they bought it.
“You don’t see many of them around, because they did their work and then people got rid of them – they were only meant to last for like five years.”
‘Truck for sale’
Fast forward to 2012, and Chris spotted a post on Facebook from his cousin that said ‘truck for sale’.
“Immediately, I got on the phone to my dad and said ‘they’re selling uncle Steve’s truck, can you get a hold of my aunt Mari and let her know I’m interested?’ he says.
“He immediately came back to me and said she’d save it for me. I bought it for £1,200, and that’s really cheap, but then I had to ship it over, which added probably another £1,800.
“It first went to my grandfather’s house in the US and sat there for a couple of years before I could ship it over here in 2014, when I restored it with some friends from work.”
Chris already had a long association with Volkswagens when he bought the truck.
“At 15 or 16, when you start driving over there, my first car was a Beetle,” he says. “You could pick them up for $50 or $75 and, at one time, my dad and I probably had six of them sitting by the side of the house, using them for parts.
“Then about 30 years ago, when my daughter was born, I had a ‘67 splitscreen deluxe bus. I paid $700 for it, and sold it for $750. I probably should have kept that…”
Avowed Volkswagen fans
Steve and Mari were also avowed Volkswagen fans.
“They bought an SO42 Split Camper off the line in Germany and drove it all over Europe, all over England, and then shipped it back to America,” says Chris, chatting at the Alive & V-Dubbin festival in Suffolk.
“Uncle Steve had lots of different Volkswagens, and he got really into doing work on them with a colleague. Originally, this truck would have had a 1200cc 6 volt engine, but he converted it to a 1600.”
Having married Nicola, an English woman visiting the US, Chris swapped California for England 25 years ago.
“Her stepdad’s brother was the bass player for Iggy Pop, and I was a drummer, and I was introduced to her at the San Diego music awards after party, and that was it,” he says.
“She got homesick and I was up for coming over, and I love it over here. I miss the beach, but Norfolk’s a beautiful place to live.”
The Splittie truck became just a memory of home, until that fateful Facebook post.
A lot of work
“I got it here on June 10, 2014,” he remembers. “It was in a lot worse shape than my dad had let on, and it needed a lot of work.
“The drop sides were kind of like an oval, bent out on the sides from the truck being overloaded with stuff, and people trying to shut it when they probably shouldn’t have.
“Speaking to my cousins, they used to like riding in it, because they could see the road through the cab floor.
“When I got it, the truck was painted ivory – I’d describe it as ivory and rust.”
On the inside, however, the cab was a red colour, and Chris set about uncovering the original paint colour.
“I originally thought it was going to be sealing wax red, but when I got it over here there was a part that I could buff out, and it ended up being this firebus red, which I’m really happy with,” he adds.
“Luckily I work at Lotus Cars in the paintshop, and a couple of guys there, Paul and Shaun, helped me with the restoration. I had it sandblasted and then we started working on it, every day after work.
95% original
“I haven’t replaced any panels, apart from three quarters of the floor in the cab and treasure chest door skin. It’s probably 95 per cent original.”
Chris and his colleagues didn’t hang about, with the truck completed – bar the drop down sides – by the end of September.
“They were a couple of really top guys there at Lotus that sprayed it for me,” he says. “It would have been all red originally, and I liked the idea of the two-tone, so I put the ivory over the top of the firebus red. They’re both 1958 VW colours.”
As well as the paintwork, the seats have been re-covered (“it was a place where rats were living”), new wheel hub caps have been fitted to the original wheels, and a replacement 1600cc engine has been fitted.
The end result, a “stock” look with a standard ride height, has won approval from across the Pond.
“My uncle has sadly passed, but my aunt is still around, and she and my cousins can’t believe it – they’re over the moon with it,” says Chris, who has driven 30,000 miles in the decade since the truck’s restoration.
Well-travelled pickup
“I drive it every week, not all week, but at least once a week,” he says. “I move furniture, do tip runs, go camping. I use it for everything.
“During lockdown, I would go out into a field and get on the back with the drums set up and play them. I still do that to this day.
“I also have a tent that just happens to be exactly the right size to fit on the back, so I pitch that up and sleep on a blow up bed.
“I’ve driven everywhere in it – Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, trying to hit everywhere in the UK.
“Last year (2023), I went to Hannover via the ferry for the VW bus festival put on by VW commercial. They had, I think, 6,000 VW commercial vehicles.”
Nicola is not big into camping, but she’s happy for Chris – who is at the festival with Kev’s Splitties Group – to indulge his passion.
A lot of VW friends
“I’ve made a lot of friends in the Volkswagen community,” he says, although the pickup is probably more well known than he is.
“It’s funny, people tend to know that truck and know me off of it. Often you’ll be scrolling through Facebook, you’ve been spotted somewhere and a picture appears out of nowhere.”
The truck is also a big hit with Chris’s granddaughter, Mila, who is nearly five.
“I’ve created a seatbelt that goes through her car seat, and she absolutely loves driving in it,” he says.
“Every time I go to get her – ‘are you coming to get me in the truck?’ A couple of weeks ago we were driving and people were flashing their lights, hanging out of the windows waving, and she said ‘do you know them?’ I said ‘no, I don’t know them’.
“Then I showed her the hang loose hand thing, and told her that when you see another Volkswagen, you wave. Then it was ‘is that one?’ She’s waving at almost every van that goes by.”
The irreplaceable truck
So important is the truck to Chris and his family, that talk of its value is entirely academic.
“The very first day out in it, my youngest and I went out to a show and somebody came up and offered me £20,000 straight away,”he says. “I said ‘no, this is not for sale’.
“To me, it’s priceless, irreplaceable, I wouldn’t ever sell it. That truck is staying with me forever.
“It will be passed on to one of my kids, and it will probably be Mila’s one day.”
And the Volkswagen isn’t the only treasured family car that will soon be heading to the UK.
“My parents have my grandmother’s 1966 Mustang that I learned how to drive in and went to the prom in,” he explains. “I’ll be bringing that over next year, hopefully.”
