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.
On the other hand, the T3 is interesting for me because it is unusual from a modern perspective. The engine and drive are located in the rear, the engine is a boxer (already water-cooled in this case), the steering does not yet have servo assistance and almost everything on this vehicle is easy to repair.
Instead of the approx. 50 hp of my parents’ vanagon, my model has around 78 hp and an almost empty cargo space, apart from wooden boards on the floor and a small cupboard. That’s quite enough to avoid holding up traffic. There are examples with 90 or, in a few cases, even over 100 hp. But I find it interesting to drive a car with a carburetor engine, and this engine is the most powerful of its kind in a T3.
As you may have guessed looking at the outside of the car, it was used by the Red Cross in the south of Italy. The great advantage of this is the climatic conditions there: Little rain and virtually no snow mean that old cars there suffer significantly less from rust than is the case in Germany, where a lot of road salt is spread on the roads in winter. That was one of the deciding factors in my purchase decision: The underbody of the vehicle looks surprisingly good.
My plan with this bus is - of course - to convert it into a motorhome. The empty load compartment plays into my hands. The electric ventilation in the roof is also a nice plus. However, there seems to be some object stuck in it, you can hear a quiet rattling noise when you let it run. I’ll have to have into this.
I will be putting a lot of work into this vehicle and no doubt some money too, whenever I need a professional to do some work. I will document all of this here, and I’m very much looking forward to it!