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Things that go bump under the bed
Saturday, February 16, 2013 • Mark Peters
NOT many blokes would get away with asking their wives to sleep in the garage while they toured around the East Cape . . . but retired airforce engineer Robert “Doc” Watson has built a garage with a difference.

Fitted in the back of his and wife Lois’s campervan, the “garage” doubles as a bedroom complete with bookcase and storage space.

Before the Whitianga couple go on tour, Mr Watson raises the bed with a hydraulic system, lays down two ramps and switches on a motorised winch that tows a small car into the back of the motor-home.

“I had the idea of putting a car in the back of a bus since I was a kid,” he says.

“I must have seen it in a Popular Mechanics magazine. The idea has been in the back of my mind for years.”

A near-accident on the Haast Pass prompted Mr Watson to make good on his teenage dream. He was towing a car behind a campervan when he became stuck behind a slow-moving tour bus. He stopped but the trailer dragged him backwards down the hill. He managed to steer it to safety on to the side of the road.

The campervan began life as a kindergarten bus in Japan and was later imported into New Zealand.

Mr Watson raised the roof for extra height, widened the body and fitted a hydraulic wall section that can be extended from the side of the campervan for more space.

The retired airframe fitter also lengthened the bodywork to accommodate the garage.

The car it houses was originally a Suzuki Alto which Mr Watson bought off the side of the road in Howick. He chopped a 670mm section out of the middle, shortened the fuel and brake lines, removed the driver and passenger seats and slid the back seat into the front, which left room at the rear for a small boot.

Mrs Watson says her husband painted the car bright yellow so big trucks would not run over them.

“Their wheels are as big as the car.”

Because he chopped the middle section out of the car, Mr Watson says he figured he should take the middle syllable out of the name and call it a Suki.

A Suki Guzzunder.

“It’s a Suki Guzzunder because it goes under the bed,” he says.
IT’S A SUKI GUZZUNDER: Whitianga couple Robert and Lois Watson stop over in Gisborne while touring the East Cape in a campervan with a difference. Mr Watson has modified the motor-home to accommodate a modified small car. Picture by Dave Thomas
Comments
Les Spicer
07:29 p.m. Saturday, Feb 16, 2013
“I had the idea of putting a car in the back of a bus since I was a kid,” he says.
“I must have seen it in a Popular Mechanics magazine."
If I recall correctly, the late Andy Anderson (No 1 NZMCA member) did exactly this back in the mid 1950s in Jim McCullough's Cobden Street workshop.
Les Spicer
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