Retro surfboard by Clive Barber…

This is a board shaped by Clive Barber, Clive was one of the early shaper surfers, photographer and producer of the first-ever African surf movie African Vibrations in 1968. The movie had the potential and excitement to follow up on Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer.

Some of 35mm shots are still for sale, they present Jbay in the old days and some kief shots from Australia. Pictures can be found with Garth Robinson . Proceedings of the sale are going to Clive's sisters in Durban and Cape Town. Visit www.j-bay.com For more…

Clive was an eccentric person and a second-generation shaper and mentored for 3 years by John Whitmore. Clive spend quite of his time in Sea Point in Cape Town. For most of his last years, he spends living in st Croix Street in Jeffreys Bay.

The board displayed was made between 1966 -1977. At the end of the longboard era, all was changing. They took the 9’6” and the 10-footers and start cutting them down. Clive started from a fresh blank and made the V-Machine as a scalled-down longboard. From that shape, design changed to the Mini Gun.

This board is believed to be shaped at the John Whitmore factory as this was where all the magic happened in Cape Town. John had the Magnum 44 which had a pin tail and Clive came up with this square tail design. Craig Stokes used to do the laminating for the “Barber Stokes surfboards” label in the those days.


All Clive’s boards were super eccentric. This V-Machine is kind of an in-between board. The design of the V-Machine is actually a scaled-down longboard with a rolled V bottom and narrow and flexible long fins. The board displayed is believed to be from the early 70s during the transition period from longboarding to short boarding.

This board was shaped before we all knew about Fin Boxes and came with a big glassed-on long raked purple fin which has unfortunately been broken off.

Clive has an older brother that lives in Australia and a cousin that lives in New Zeeland with two daughters. One of them is Amarnie Barber. She is 2x New Zeeland National surf Champ and 1x New Zeeland Snowboard champ and keeping up the Barber legacy.

* Dimensions of the board are estimates
* Contact us if you have more information, we would be happy to add it to the story