Sons of Jamal

Roadside camping makes strange bedfellows #blendingin #justoneoftheguys #longhaul

Take Jamal into San Francisco and the #instagram #influencers come like moths to a flame. No idea who this guy is but his jacket makes Jamal’s paint pop 🍒

The wiring harness came with a handy 4 step guide, where step 4 was ‘install the new harness’... 😶 Thanks to dedicated VW owners out there, these exquisite original wiring diagrams still exist, and are the only reason my car still works 🙏🏻 #vwbus #vwbusrestoration #wiringharness

Ok so ‘a couple of weekends’ to redo the wiring harness was optimistic. But here we are, entirely new electrical system installed and the best bonus skill ever: I now know how to Hotwire a car 😏🔧⚡️. #gta5 #hideyocars (at Highway 1 - Carmel / Big Sur)

Jamal always has my back, even when I'm waiting for a replacement vehicle so I can drive somewhere within double the google maps estimated time. #vwbusboss #impractical #stillcool

I see this bus all the time and she is *impeccable*. I bask in the gleam of her chrome accents😍. Every day Jamal gets a little closer to being worthy of her presence - see the tiny shiny glint of his new bumper? #chrome #busfriends

Emerging victorious (and with an unscathed manicure💁🏻) with the correctly sized bolts for the new bumper after foraging through a scrap bucket

I got an email from one of the readers of the Jamal blog asking why I hardly post anymore, and I reminded me that many of you who don't know me personally don't know that I moved out of Jamal! Don't worry, I still drive him daily and work on him often (this photo is him carrying lumber to build a bed for a friend last weekend), but now I get to stand up in my bedroom (!!) and stop loitering on corners. I'll still be posting updates on improvements I make; so if you like VW buses, I'd love it if you stuck around ☺️🏡

Another snap from Jamal's adventure with @rotisserievechicken. Summer has come to the bay ☺️ #vwbus #mintgreen #vanlife

Wrapping the steering wheel in leather is a little like me ordering whiskey neat in a bar: I'm not fooling anyone but it makes me feel real classy ✨

I left Jamal at the bottom in order to hike up and perform this striking rendition of 'the hills are alive'. California being idyllic as usual #windows95 #desktopbackground

When they organize the car show by colour and you end up next to the Lamborghini 😱#vwbus #lamborghini #whynotboth

Waow check out this #headliner, #vinylisback amirite? Am I talking about #coachellaweekend or my #vwbus?

This weekend I replaced my fuel pump and filter to stop Jamal coughing (winter has got to us all), but the photos of greasy car parts don't Instagram nearly as well as this photo by @stamatamatakos of Jamal and I meeting a new friend ☺️

Having a snack before embarking on a truly heroic rescue mission. Jamal effortlessly towed a broken down friend up several hills back to where she lives 👏🏽☺️