Jamie Oliver's 23 Window Split Screen Camper Van

I've always been into food, not in a (getting) big way, you understand, but actual cooking. Couple that with my love of classic cars and vans and you have a match made in heaven when you put everything into a great big melting pot and serve up a portion of Jamie Oliver and a classic Camper Van.

Oliver is known for his cheeky chappy Essex geezer persona on the one hand, his unfussy cooking on the other, and then on the er, other hand, his love of motors. The first few series Jamie Oliver did were as much about style as they were food. His 1959 Porsche engined split screen Camper Van must have become the most famous veedub in the world, apart from Herbie, during this period. You can see it here at Watling Engineers (www.watling-towbars.co.uk) after having a bespoke towbar fitted to allow the vintage Camper to pull his colour-coded catering trailer for the series - Jamie's Great Italian Escape.

So what of this highly sought after 23 window Samba then? Well, the stock motor has given way to a Porsche 2.4 litre engine from a 914 ,running hand-in-hand with a Porsche cooling system. The engine isn't the only nod to Ferdinand Porsche either, for as we all know, apart from the paint-job, it's the wheels that make the van, and this van sits on highly polished Porsche Fuchs (pronounce - 'foosh') alloys.

Like all Campers, the history of the van has had it's ups and downs since the fifties. Apparently found languishing in a scrapyard around 1991, it became the 4-year project of Matt Keene and was fully restored by him. Of course, any full restoration would not be complete without either an unforgiving chemical dip, or sandblasting back to bare metal, and this vintage van was no exception. The icing on the cake, though surely, is the purple and white paint-job it was eventually wrapped in.

The story goes that after it's restoration, the van changed hands, was stolen by someone that did nothing but polish it before giving it back, and was then consequently spotted by the TV chef who asked to buy it. Oliver then added some further cosmetic modifications. This van was equipped with satellite navigation (handy when driving around Italy), two televisions, a Play-Station, plus the obligatory audio (ICE) upgrade. All of this being worth around £10,000 alone.

Following the desire to start a new VW project, Oliver decided to sell his well travelled Splitty. Expecting around £50,000 for the automobile, it in fact fetched £47,000 at a Brands Hatch auction in May 2007 – just in time for the excited new owner to sort out some VW Camper Van insuranceand enjoy the summer. Not a bad return I'd say.