Yesterday, I bought a VW Bus as old as I am. Yes, I’m old enough to be considered a “classic car” by German law. That’s definitely food for thought.

Why a VW bus of all things? On the one hand, because it was one of the first cars I rode in as a child. Back then, my parents drove a sky-blue T3 (called the “vanagon” in English). It was converted into a camping bus and had a high roof. It was an earlier model than my current one, with even less power. According to my father, in combination with the heavy camping gear, this meant that you were sometimes overtaken by 40-ton vehicles on the highway, especially uphill. Another story about the bus at the time is that of a rear-end collision. A mid-range car crashed into the rear of my parents’ bus. The result: the car that hit the bus was scrap, the bus only had a few scratches. The bumpers on the T3 are legendary for their robustness.