Age 53 and I’m not currently a VW guy, but I want a Westy. Bad.

First vehicle purchase was an engineless ’62 Beetle with fabric sunroof. Never got that car going.

A few years later in the military I bought a ’63 camper, which I now know to describe as a hatchroof Westy split with a roof rack. When the brakes went out on that I foolishly continued to drive it for two more weeks. You can be forgiven a lot in Austin, Texas (home of the UT Longhorns) when the vehicle you drive is orange and white. When I tried to jack it up to do the brake work I discovered that jack points kept going right up through the (nicely painted over) rusty rocker panels and Bondo. Oh, well. Sold that and bought Amurrican.

Later on got a ’76 Dasher wagon, which I loved. Moved to New England and then out west where it died an oil-smoky death. Since then there have been a Nissan pickup and a Mopar minivan, each going over 300K miles; their utility, reliability and thrift proved unbeatable during my years as road rep in the bicycle biz.

Two years ago a buddy gave up bay Westies after 30 years and two vans. I suddenly developed the inexplicable and hitherto unfelt need for a Vanagon Westy. I’ve never driven a Vanagon, I don’t camp, and the van I have now is, from everything I’ve read on this list, a better vehicle in nearly every respect, but I still want a Westy and I’m dangerously close to getting one. We’ll see. Meanwhile I’ll keep posting Vanagon finds in Virginia.

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