Tag Archives: volkswagen

Auto Industry, Four Wheels

Why Volkswagen Won’t Bring Us Camper Vans

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There’s a strong argument that VW started the camper van craze, way back with its Westfalia pop-up campers on the original Microbus. Camper vans are all the rage now (I live in one myself), yet you can’t get VW’s version in North America, despite being named the California. Why?

The Drive did some digging and found out. The entire article is worth a read, but in summary, it comes down to a few factors.

Entering the North American camper van market would require VW to enter the North American van market. While their Transporter is common elsewhere in the world, it’s never been sold here. It would cost millions to go through the safety and emissions certification process just to be able to offer it. Although the 25% “chicken tax” on imported commercial vehicles may be a factor as well, there are easy ways around that. Just ask Mercedes how they sell the Sprinter here. The California accounts for only a small fraction of all Transporters sold, and it simply wouldn’t be worth it just for that.

Still, RV and camper van sales have boomed during COVID-19. Especially in 2020, there simply wasn’t anything else to do, because everything was closed. Wouldn’t it be worth it for VW to cash in on that? Actually, no. Even if they were already perfectly positioned to start selling the California when demand for camper vans surged, it’s likely only a short-term bubble. We’re not out of the COVID-19 woods yet as variants keep spreading around, but society has decided it’s over anyway and reopened just about everything. As life returns to normal, and other forms of travel and entertainment take over again, the demand for RVs and camper vans will likely plummet. Value and prices will probably drop like crazy, taking all the profitability out of it.

Another factor is the overall economy. It’s already been on shaky ground during the pandemic, despite government relief efforts. If the bottom drops out, not only will people not be able to afford RVs and camper vans, they’ll have to sell the ones they have just to make ends meet. The end result is the same: prices plummet, and there’s no profit.

So as much as we’d like to see the return of the iconic VW-branded camper van, it’s not going to happen. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense why.

Car Culture, Four Wheels

This Crusty Cop Beetle Visited My Elementary School

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I was in first grade when this car paid a visit to my elementary school in Acton, Massachusetts. I remember it clearly because my mom had a 1974 VW Super Beetle in Screaming Yellow Zonker (I’m almost positive that’s the factory’s name for the color), and this was a police Beetle, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. My teacher didn’t like me, and falsely accused me of pushing my way through the crowd to get a better look before sending me back to the classroom to miss the rest of the presentation.

Mustie1 goes into the car’s history a bit in this video, but I can shed some light as well. The car traveled around Massachusetts making presentations to young school kids like myself. During a bit of automotive archeology he finds a cassette tape of a school bus safety presentation — the same presentation my first grade teacher kicked me out of. It plays through the PA system. The front of the car resembles a face, complete with the police hat. The hood has a motor to make it open and close to make it look like the car is talking. That’s why the lower part of the trunk area is painted a very non-police pink color, to look like the inside of a mouth. I spent most of this video wondering if this was really the same car that visited my school 40 years ago. This detail confirmed for me that it is.

Mustie1 actually manages to get this long dead car running again in his second video (it’s over an hour long, so “Buckle up, America,” like the bumper sticker he found inside says). To someone like me who grew up with fuel injected cars, it’s amazing to me just how simple the process of getting it running it. It certainly doesn’t run well, but he manages to not only start it, but also drive it around a dirt lot (with practically no brakes, but who needs those?)

It’s amazing what memories can be tied up with a car, especially when I saw far more of it in these videos than I did back in first grade. Particularly thanks to my mean first grade teacher.