Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Rock of the Westies!
This early-model Vanagon camper features the "Westfalia" package, so named because Westfalia-Werke (headquartered in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia) built them for Volkswagen using base Transporter models as a starting point. By 1980, when the Vanagon debuted in the United States, it was the last aircooled model available from Volkswagen, the Beetle convertible having just been replaced by the Rabbit ragtop.
The "Westy" campers had more luggage and sleeping space than its size suggested, especially with the poptop up. This model is an excellent specimen of a vehicle built toward the end of an era. The model year would be anywhere from 1980 to 1983, as it was in the spring of the latter year that VW replaced the aircooled engine with a watercooled one - but still mounted in the rear driving the rear wheels, and that configuration would remain the norm for VW vans until the front-engine, front-drive EuroVan debuted in 1993.
Be it Westy camper or passenger van, aircooled or watercooled, the Vanagon seemed out of step in the eighties; driving one to the supermarket in the Reagan years was the automotive equivialent of showing up at a Duran Duran or Run-DMC concert in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. But a few hardy souls remained loyal to Vee-Dub vans - including the owner of the '85 Vanagon I photographed earlier - long after Chrysler's minivans gave them ample reasons not to. The problem was that Chrysler minivans have never been as cool or funky as Volkswagen's were.
And they've never come in camper form, either. ;-)
(Ironically, VW and DaimlerChrysler are collaborating on a minivan for 2008. Until then, people waiting for the VW version and hoping for more Daimler and less Chrysler will have to keep their old EuroVans going a little longer.)
The "Westy" campers had more luggage and sleeping space than its size suggested, especially with the poptop up. This model is an excellent specimen of a vehicle built toward the end of an era. The model year would be anywhere from 1980 to 1983, as it was in the spring of the latter year that VW replaced the aircooled engine with a watercooled one - but still mounted in the rear driving the rear wheels, and that configuration would remain the norm for VW vans until the front-engine, front-drive EuroVan debuted in 1993.
Be it Westy camper or passenger van, aircooled or watercooled, the Vanagon seemed out of step in the eighties; driving one to the supermarket in the Reagan years was the automotive equivialent of showing up at a Duran Duran or Run-DMC concert in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. But a few hardy souls remained loyal to Vee-Dub vans - including the owner of the '85 Vanagon I photographed earlier - long after Chrysler's minivans gave them ample reasons not to. The problem was that Chrysler minivans have never been as cool or funky as Volkswagen's were.
And they've never come in camper form, either. ;-)
(Ironically, VW and DaimlerChrysler are collaborating on a minivan for 2008. Until then, people waiting for the VW version and hoping for more Daimler and less Chrysler will have to keep their old EuroVans going a little longer.)
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