Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 12:44:14 -0400
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From: Brent Christensen <sbsyncro@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: This 1980's Camper Thinks It's an S.U.V.
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This 1980's Camper Thinks It's an S.U.V.
July 18, 2003
By CHRIS DIXON
BOUNDING and bouncing through the dusty backcountry of the
Hollister Hills in central California, Ron Lussier
demonstrated a rugged bravado that would do the steeliest
off-roader proud. "You know," he said, "roads like this are
really the only valid reason for owning a Humvee. They're
completely silly in cities or even driving down the
freeway. But get back here in one, and you can have some
serious fun."
After easily clearing a three-foot berm on Bonanza Gulch
Road, Mr. Lussier headed for an alarmingly steep route,
marked by a sign with a single black diamond, indicating a
particularly tough off-road drive. Not convinced that his
vehicle would make the ascent, I climbed out of the
passenger seat and clambered up the road, occasionally on
hands and knees, to watch his attempt. He released his
clutch and lurched upward. Four knobby tires clawed the
ground, and in about 20 seconds he made it, leaving several
hooting onlookers, including me, astounded. Mr. Lussier was
not driving a Hummer; he was in a 1991 Volkswagen Vanagon
Westfalia Syncro camper.
That's right: camper. After this grueling backcountry
jaunt, the Syncro converted into a well-equipped R.V. - a
trick no Hummer has ever mastered. And Mr. Lussier, a
photographer from San Francisco, settled in for the night.
Produced in Germany and sold in America from 1986 to 1991,
the Syncro Vanagon, a four-wheel-drive version of the
standard, boxy 1980's Vanagon, is now exceedingly rare, and
rarer still are the camper models - the fully outfitted
pop-top version made by Westfalia in Germany and the
hardwood-trimmed models modified by Adventurewagen or
Country Homes in the United States. The Syncro has a
military-inspired undercarriage and a jacked-up drive train
with a special gear for climbing hills; on the camper
models attachments fold out, slide out and pop up to create
sleeping space.
More than 50 Syncro owners, who had largely met through
Syncro.org or an Internet mailing list, gathered a few
weeks ago in an oak-shaded campground in the Hollister
Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area to compare notes and
put their vans through the paces on challenging and
beautiful backcountry roads. The vans are an anomaly amid
the Jeeps, Land Rovers and four-wheel-drive pickup trucks
that usually ride this terrain. "People do get pretty
surprised when they see us back here," Mr. Lussier said as
he rolled back into camp after our white-knuckle ride.
No one, not even Volkswagen, seems to know for sure, but
hard-core Syncronauts estimate that only about 5,000
Syncros - 1,500 campers and 3,500 passenger vans - were
sold in the United States. Well-preserved camper models now
sell for almost their original sticker price of around
$18,000 and are appreciating in value.
The couple - a married former Roman Catholic priest and a
former nun - who sold Mr. Lussier his Syncro told him they
had driven it from California to Alaska, where they lived
in it. Mr. Lussier once shipped it to Venezuela and drove
it through Brazil. Now, with upgraded shocks, wheels and a
gleaming paint job, it is in superb condition. "I don't
believe in mollycoddling it," he said. "You've got to use
it. Otherwise, what's the point in having it?"
Brian Smith, 44, of Oceanside, Calif., has a 1987 Syncro
camper that he has customized with a microwave, toaster
oven, camp heater and external generator. "I swear to God
if someone offered me $50,000 for this car," he said, "I
wouldn't sell it." He added: "I drove it down to Tulúm in
the Yucatán and camped right on the beach. I went through
Chiapas and saw the waterfalls and rain forests. You can go
and camp 10 feet from the water, completely
self-contained."
These Syncro enthusiasts were preaching to the converted.
Last year I purchased my own 1986 Syncro camper, paying
$12,000 to a family in Los Angeles who had named it
Cecilia. For me, Cecilia represented the ultimate
journalist's tool. In it, I could get nearly anywhere to
cover a story, and I wouldn't need a hotel. I could fix a
cup of hot coffee, plug in a power inverter to run my
cellphone-connected laptop and type away.
Of course, there was also the promise of camping adventures
with my wife, Quinn, which we have pursued with abandon
across California's outback. And like many other Syncro
converts, we soon began to wonder why there weren't more of
these versatile vehicles on the roads.
As Christian Bokich, a brand marketing strategist at
Volkswagen, and Thomas Niksch, a mechanical engineer who
runs a German Syncro enthusiasts' Web site
(www.syncro16.de), tell the story, the Syncro was both
behind and ahead of its time. At $18,000, the camper model
was expensive for 1986, yet it had only a 90-horsepower
engine, better suited to a Beetle than a 4,000-pound van.
It was complicated to manufacture, and Volkswagen was
concentrating at that time on building a new minivan. The
company was loath even to promote the Syncro, though
magazines like Car and Driver gave it glowing reviews.
"I've had a lot of contact with managers from that time,"
Mr. Bokich said. "They said that the biggest challenge was
that people weren't getting the message about the Syncro."
The Syncro's origins go back to the late 1970's when two
Volkswagen engineers, dreaming of a vehicle they could use
to camp and travel to remote places like the Sahara desert,
built some prototypes. In the mid-1980's,
Steyr-Daimler-Puch, manufacturer of a legendary military
off-road vehicle called the Pinzgauer, teamed up with
Volkswagen to design and manufacture the Syncro.
IN many ways, it was a groundbreaking ground pounder. An
independently suspended four-wheel-drive system gave it
excellent ground clearance and kept all four wheels planted
in challenging terrain. A locking system gave it tanklike
traction by preventing any one wheel from breaking free and
spinning. A viscous coupler, now a common device,
automatically engaged the four-wheel-drive in response to
any slippage in the rear wheels. Many of the inventions
found in the Syncro have since made their way into vehicles
like the Subaru Outback and Volkswagen's own new S.U.V.,
the Touareg.
But it was the camper model that truly distinguished the
Syncro. In it you could keep food fresh in a small
refrigerator, cook it on a two-burner stove, wash the
dishes in a stainless-steel sink with water from a
13-gallon tank, store gear in a series of cabinets and
sleep four people comfortably. The little-known Syncro
camper was a backcountry mobile home, the ultimate
expression of a sport utility vehicle before the term was
even coined.
At the Hollister camp, Brent Christensen, a director of
product development for a software company in Santa
Barbara, Calif., described a family trip "all the way up
the coast, close to Seattle, then through the Sierras" with
stops at out-of-the-way campsites. "We'll say, `There's a
neat-looking site, but it's right over that big berm and
down between those two trees,' " he said. " `Let's see if
we can get down there.' The next morning we wake up with
the creek outside our front door."
Eric Ching, 35, a lifeguard from Huntington Beach, Calif.,
and his wife, Tina Om, have taken their 2-year-old
daughter, Zoe, around California with them, charging in
their 1990 Syncro through the soft sand dunes of Pismo
Beach and the deep snow of Mammoth Mountain and up the
punishing hills at Hollister (where Zoe snoozed in her car
seat the whole way). "We like going places you don't see
people," Mr. Ching said.
Brian Smith's Syncro traveled the world even before he and
his family began taking it on trips to Mexico. "The guy who
owned it before me was a diplomat," Mr. Smith said. "They
shipped him out to Africa to work and he shipped the van.
He was with his wife and two kids camping in the van and
they woke up one morning and thought there was an
earthquake. They look out the window and there's an
elephant running at them. He just jumped down from his bed
with the pop-top up and started driving. The elephant
collapsed the back hatch but they got away."
The Internet has not only coalesced the thinly spread
community of Syncro zealots, but created a viable market
for Syncro parts. Today, you can buy any Syncro part
online, including oversized South African VW wheels and
improved suspension components from Australia. You can even
swap the engine for a more powerful VW turbodiesel or a
Subaru Outback powerplant.
Mr. Lussier said he was already wondering how to put an
electric engine in his Syncro in the distant future, when
he expects petroleum use to be banned.
Like several owners at Hollister, he said flatly that he
would never sell his Syncro.
I think I'll hang on to mine, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/automobiles/18SYNC.html?ex=1059546653&ei=1&en=0f605aa94cbce407
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