You might expect a lifetime of working on old Volkswagens to dull your enthusiasm for Wolfsburg’s insect-like and loaf-shaped icons, but Jack’s Garage owner Joseph Salama remains a self-confessed ‘Dubhead’.
Gesturing at a sepia-tinged photo of his family sitting on the back of a ‘bay window’ Type 2 campervan, Salama recounts his early air-cooled experiences: “Dad was a surgeon in the navy, then he got a job in Tripoli.
“We emigrated there in our camper from our house in Southend – and back a couple of times.”
Volkswagen Type 2s queue up underneath the railway arches, outside Jack’s Garage in London
Since taking over his three-arch workshop 16 years ago, Salama has established himself as the go-to guy for London’s classic Volkswagen owners, and is so busy that the rumble of the Circle Line above is drowned out by the near-constant offbeat clatter of a flat-four.
There are two arches for servicing and maintenance, but the bodyshop – “always the warmest area!” – is where the full-bore restoration work takes place.
