VW campervan owners often have a deep attachment to their unique vehicles, considering them as adventure companions, workhorses, and family members.
But Steve Green is more proud of the name Cecil than most of his vans. The van is on its way to one million miles and is still making a profit from plastic removal work on the Cornish coast.
Mr Green, 50, bought Cecil, 52, for the equivalent of £180 in 1998 while working as a mechanic in Australia.
The van was in a sorry state as it had already covered over 500,000 miles and had been used as a shuttle bus between Canberra and Sydney airports.
Mr Green spent six months repairing it and when it came time to leave Australia, he planned to sell Cecil at auction in Sydney, but he couldn’t bear to part with it.
“We wanted to drive him back to the UK. We also managed to get visas to India and Russia, but unfortunately China said no, so we had to drive him back to the UK. We put him on a ship and brought him home, and we haven’t seen each other since.”
Green said he grew up loving the Harvey movies, which told the story of the beloved Volkswagen Beetle. “I believe that cars have a mind of their own. His mileage is approaching his 900,000 miles, and as far as I know, this mileage is the highest in the world among these players.”
Cecil is currently clean ocean sailing, a Cornish organization that transports waste plastic collected from beaches, working alongside a 100-year-old sailing vessel called Annette. Cecil, which currently operates using waste chip fat oil, extracts plastic from the south-west coast of England and transports it to a recycling factory in Exeter.
“This boat is over 100 years old and still in service. Let’s see if we can keep the old van going for another 50 years,” Green said. “Using historic transportation and sailing ships fits our ethos perfectly.”
Cecil has never been towed away, but Green pays breakdown insurance every year. “We have a good laugh with the insurance company every year.”
But he figures he spends as much time fixing his car as he does driving it. Mr. Green said, “He would have to be a DIY mechanic to drive one of these, but they are very easy to work on and repair.”
Perhaps even Green would admit that Cecil is not a classic beauty. Cecil is rusted and battered, and a makeshift crane made from scaffolding poles used to transport plastic lends it a makeshift feel.
Mr Green said he was inspired to set up Clean Ocean Sailing after seeing tonnes of waste littering the beautiful coastline during a sailing trip to the Isles of Scilly.
“There was a lot of trash washing up on these tiny little islands. There’s all kinds of trash washing up at a depth of one meter, so we wanted to do something about it. Except for Cecil, we didn’t have the engine. It sails, rows, and rows anywhere without using it.”
When Green acquired Cecil in 1998, more than 500,000 transactions had already been made. He said: “I bought it from his original owner and it had a good service history.” Green has Cecil approaching the 900,000 mile mark and feels he has many more miles to go.
A Volkswagen spokesperson said they could not confirm Cecil’s record as there were a number of other motorhomes with very high mileage, but said Cecil was “really impressive”.
