Digger:
Can you please tell us a little bit about your background
and the background to Outermotive?
Karen:
My husband Colin is the expert on VW’s and from when he
was born he inherited his dad’s love of Beetles
particularly. He was under the bonnet of Beetles, whether he
liked it or not. But not so much on the camper side of
things.
Digger:
And what were you up to?
Karen:
Me? I used to work at the courts in Warwick, a completely
separate kind of thing until I had my children and what have
you. But I always wanted to have a camper van and I remember
my parents saying I shouldn’t have one because I
couldn’t fix it if it went wrong. (Laughs)
Digger:
Fortunately you didn’t take their advice.
Karen:
No, but I did wait until I met Colin. (Laughs) It was
something that really came together when we got together and
Colin was an engineer at the time for the British Touring
Cars and Porsche GT Club and those kinds of things. The work
on those is very seasonal and each year you’re looking for
the next job. So we started to think about doing something
of our own. And then the idea of having a camper came back
to us.
Digger:
And you both bring different skills to it.
Karen:
Yes, mine more admin and business and that kind of thing.
And then Colin’s got the practical Volkswagen and other
historic cars from his historic rally cars experience. So we
could have a camper van ourselves (Laughs) we thought we’d
perhaps start hiring them and have a workshop for fixing
them for customers.
Digger:
You have a few campers?
Karen:
We have three.
Digger:
It’s good for people to have a choice. What sorts of
packages are you offering?
Karen:
Basically for weeks and weekends mostly but one thing we
like to try to do is to be flexible with our hire dates. I
know a lot of places are much more rigid where you have to
start it on a Friday. Whereas we like to start on a Friday
because it’s simpler (Laughs) but because we know
people’s lives are so different now and they work in all
kinds of different jobs at different times. So we try to be
a bit more flexible and if someone wants to do Tuesday to
Tuesday then they can.
Digger: My girlfriend and I tend to be like that – we try
to avoid the busy times and the obvious times. People tend
not to fit into moulds as you say.
Karen:
Absolutely.
Digger:
As long as it works for you.
Karen:
To be honest, it doesn’t seem to make too much difference
in the end. Each year we said “Shall we change it?” but
you can end up booking in short trips for people at short
notice and it doesn’t seem to make too much difference
overall so we carried on that way.
Digger:
What makes Outermotive stand out?
Karen:
We’re fussy and quite particular. As far as the hire’s
concerned we’ve tried to keep the vans we’ve got as
original as possible. Although the latest one we’ve done
we’ve made a completely new interior but we’ve made it
in the same style exactly as the old one and it’s all hand-made by a carpenter. Some people just like to strip all that
out and put a more modern bed in there and that’s about
it. What we’ve done – we quite like them how they were
back in the seventies and even with our house we’re
probably the same.
Digger:
People can’t expect any real modern concessions?
Karen:
They have the same things that another van would have.
It’s got new curtains and nice and fresh upholstery and
what have you. It’s just that we’ve done it keeping the
retro style which I think is important for us and for the
clients. To keep it in the style it should have been in, I
suppose.
Digger: What
sort of clients are you getting and where are they coming
from?
Karen:
All sorts of clients. It really is actually. I don’t know
what we expected when we started, perhaps mainly younger
people but it really is every age which is great actually.
We have younger couples heading off to festivals or groups
of four girls going off for a weekend somewhere.
Digger:
What are the best things about what you both do?
Karen:
I suppose it’s making people happy at the end of the day.
It’s really nice when young kids see the camper going
along the road too and they say “Ooh look, a camper
van.” And the excitement when they arrive and when they
come back they don’t want to give the camper back.
Digger:
Ah!
Karen:
Yes. It is things like that which really make you want to do
it. From the workshop side of things for my husband
it’s somebody bringing along something that either
doesn’t work or is looking a bit worse for wear and
sending it out fixed and shiny. We fix a lot of customer
Beetles and other vehicles in our workshop and we’ve got
all sorts in there at any one time. There’s no denying
that Germans are good at engineering.
Digger:
That’s right. Most of the mid-range managers’ cars these
days are either Audi, BMW or Mercedes. Why is retro, and why
are VW campers and Beetles, so enduringly popular?
Karen:
I was born in the seventies so I might be biased but I still
love all things seventies – flared trousers and so on. But
I think it was a simpler time.
Digger:
It certainly was.
Karen:
I love the bright colours of them and the fact that you can
just get into a camper and just head off. It’s so
different from your sort of constrained lifestyle generally
speaking whenever you go to work. It’s a feeling of
freedom.
Digger:
Technology allows us to do things but it also saddles us in
some ways.
Karen:
Yes, true. I think really I should be living back then.
(Laughs)
Digger:
You never know! What sort of feedback are you getting
from clients?
Karen:
It’s really positive. There’s the occasional person that
it doesn’t suit, to be honest. I think people often like
to try the campers if they’re thinking of buying one as
well.
Digger:
Yes, like a test drive.
Karen:
That can be useful and most people love it but there can be
the occasional one that it doesn’t. One client found the
bed in the roof to be not enough room and didn’t enjoy it
but most people love it. If we had more campers to sell,
which is something we can expand on, we could sell plenty of
them to hire customers who come back and want to buy them.
(Laughs) People just can’t wait to do it again.
Digger:
What things should clients consider when booking a VW camper
break?
Karen:
Practical things – pack light because it’s really
important for fuel economy and comfort in the camper. It is
still camping at the end of the day albeit a more glorified
form and a bit drier if it rains. (Laughs) So it’s good to
think about campsites ahead of time as well. What we’re
hearing is that camping is experiencing a big revival and
obviously that means that campsites are a bit busier in peak
seasons and it’s good definitely to think of where you
might want to go and book ahead. Some people are not worried
about that and just go off, so it depends on the individual.
At the moment, certainly in the summer holidays, I’d suggest
that.
Digger:
Pack light and plan ahead.
Karen:
Yes, but really our campers do come with most of the things
you need. Pots and pans, kitchen sink, torch, first aid kit,
fire extinguisher…
Digger:
You’ve thought of it all, haven’t you?
Karen:
Yes, absolutely. There’s a table and a couple of chairs as
well. And a hob.
Digger:
So you just need to bring your bedding along?
Karen:
Bedding, clothes, food.
Digger:
I think most people would have that sussed, wouldn’t they?
So what are your retro passions Karen?
Karen:
Apart from campers and flairs (Laughs) I also love vinyl.
Digger:
Are they in good condition?
Karen:
Yes. I’ve got all kinds of bits and pieces but I’ve got
some Technics record decks so I like to play records as
well. I know it’s more and more difficult to get hold of
them but I like them. I don’t know if I ever want to get
rid of them. I like having that big stack of records.
Digger:
The album cover artwork and the sleeve notes are sadly
missed in these digital days. And it’s all going east,
our vinyl heritage, apparently. A few of my vinyl clients
tell me it’s going to ex-Soviet countries and Russia and
Turkey and even the middle-east. There goes our heritage!
But
these things have a way of finding their way back
eventually.
Karen:
We love lots of older music.
Digger:
Nice to hear that coming out of a VW camper. Where do
you see the future for Outermotive? More vans?
Karen:
Possibly not… I think we're going to keep it to
about the level we have now. The reason being that we can
maintain them better, we know what we've got. They do take a
bit of maintenance and I guess that's something we can offer
above some other places. Because we have the workshop we are
able to maintain them correctly.
