Date:         Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:49:56 -0700
Reply-To:     Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Martin Jagersand <jag@CS.UALBERTA.CA>
Subject:      Tales from Europe and the dream of a mint VW camper (part 2).
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Those that read the first installment of the Europe report
remember that I had little success at finding a both nice
and affordable camper by browsing in car dealer lots (used or new).
The other (and as many already pointed out, better) option is
of course to look for newspaper and Internet ads. I set up search
query's for all the German ad sites I can find. (www.autoscout24.de,
www.truckscout24.de, www.mobile.de, www.webmobil24.com, ebay.de).
It's not always easy to guess under what category people will
list a VW camper. Many are listed as "Wohnmobile" (motorhome),
but many are also hidden in the long lists of plain T4 and T4 vans.
A few more can be found under specialty categories or keywords such
as "California" (the name used in the 90's for our Westfalia conversion),
or "Joker" (a name used in the 80's).

Armed with dozens of candidate campers for sale, I started mapping
the locations using google maps. Ooops, turns out that for some
reason the most promising looking listings were on a great circle
with approximately 100km radius away from Munich, in places like
Garmish-Partenkirchen, Chiemsee, Pfonten, Augsburg, Ingolstadt,
Nuremberg etc. The first three, being near the alpes one understands
would be perfect places to live with a VW camper. However, I don't
get why there are more campers in the last three. They seem to be
just cities like Munich. In the end I saw a few campers in Munchen,
and rented a car to see a few outside. As I mentioned in the
previous email there are many more conversions in Germany. The
big company Reimo (www.reimo.de) sells camping parts to both
amateur and professional builders. I saw a couple of Reimo T4 long
conversions that looked a bit more practical than the Westy T4,
but they had lots of broken little things like hatchlocks etc.
While the Reimo parts look similar to the Westfalia, it seems like
the plastic is of inferior quality and breaks easily. I was also
seriously interested in a T4 Cartago Maliby 32.2, which is built
on the long wheelbase, and has a small bathroom in the back.
Unfortunately it sold before I got a hold of the owner on the phone.

In the end I decided to go for the tried and true T3 Westfalia
style. Having had one for 12 years I knew I couldn't go wrong in
terms of the camper interior. Finding a nice T3 was not so trivial
either. Germany has snow, roadsalt and consequently rust. Even
vans when the owner claimed they were used only in the summer
season had rust. I finally found one 91 T3 Turbo Diesel with both
the interior in nice shape and very little rust. Again however I
had bad luck, since after I had test driven and agreed to buy it
a friend of the owner suddenly wanted it and he got first dibs.
So much for for taking a day off and driving 200km return in a rental
car to see it... Being nearly desperate to get some wheels I even
saw a Passat, but luckily the day after I got a phone call from
not far away. Turns out there was a Westy for sale in a village only
6km from where I live. The dealer even picked me up (since there was
no public transportation going that way).

It was a gold metallic 1985, with the brownish upholstery (not my
favorite color, but at least it was clean, and by now I wasn't so picky).
At 150kmiles on the 1.9l wasserboxer, and a few pop-riveted rust repairs
it didn't look like a candidate for a keeper, but could hopefully get around

Europe for some touristing. I paid Euro 2200 and arranged to have the
garage help me with some of the more pressing repairs (fuel pump, a
couple brake lines and hoses, tires), and left the rest for me.
Ironically it turns out the Westy was a re-import from the US,
so here I came all the way to the promised land just to end up
with a camper I could just have bought at home...

To be continued...

[Next episode: how to register and insure it in Germany]

Martin