Slow. Slow and slightly noisy. Slow and slightly noisy and incredibly boxy with so-so handling. Or, in other words: perfect.
Just as there is a school of thought that has resulted in a V-6 Toyota Camry that can put the boots to many sports cars, there is also a philosophy that claims the opposite. "What's the hurry?" it asks, trundling vast distances with the speed of a snail, and likewise carrying its home on its back.
This is the world of the Westfalia, that humble sliding-doored Volkswagen equipped with not much in the horsepower department but delivering oh-so-much driving pleasure. They are surprisingly expensive, they can be found everywhere, and they're probably part of your childhood.
My folks had one. It was brown, with the white pop-up roof, and I can smell the upholstery and see the triple-LED gauges on the tiny fridge even now. My mother, who isn't a car person at all, misses that Vanagon so much you would think it was a treasured family pet that ran away from home.
I remember slamming my hand in the sliding door - yeowch! - but more than that, I remember how thrilling it was to be sleeping high up in a pop-up tent, watching for shooting stars with my brother. Lest this nostalgic reminiscence starts getting too treacly and risks turning into an episode of The Wonder Years, let it be known that even as a kid I knew it was pretty slow. There were parts of the Duffy Lake Road where the entire family was silently willing the thing up the steep parts.
However, it had just enough gumption to get where you were going, and once you were there, it was a home away from home. It wasn't quite big enough to provide a luxury camping experience, but for families who liked to play outside anyway, the Westfalia was simply perfect.
The roots of this sort of car are more than a half-century old, starting in the 1950s in Germany, when a one-off camperized box was built for a British officer stationed in post-war partitioned Germany. The Brits ran the VW factory for a while, eventually turning control back to the local council, and in the meantime, thousands of boxy little VW vans were produced to ferry people and their things around the rebuilding country.
Situated in Rheda-Wiedenbruck, in the Westphalia area of Germany, the Westfalia factory has produced all sorts of camperized vehicles over the years. Now owned by Mercedes-Benz, they do conversions on Ford and Fiat vans as well.
The Westfalia company started out as a coachbuilder making, well, coaches. They built heavy wagons in the nineteenth century, transiting to custom work later on. When the VW Type-2 (better known as the Microbus) came along, it was a perfect match.
These first Westfalias were very popular with both German families and foreign servicemen, and many were subsequently imported to North America. With an established supply of used versions on hand, they soon became a fixture of the laid-back hippie movement and surfing culture, and were a staple of the music festival.
In 1979, along came the Vanagon, a less cheerful shape but one that would become its own icon. While the early VW Microbus has become less of a nomad as it ages, due to rising prices and the age of the fleet, the Vanagon-based Westfalias are incredibly long-legged, and can be seen roaming along the Trans-Canada, or anywhere from Alaska to the Baja.
Like the air-cooled Porsche, the Westfalia exists in a land where depreciation and cost seem to have no basis in reality. These are quarter-century-old VWs, most with less than a hundred horsepower out back, but they fetch astronomical prices. If you want to buy a fully restored one from some place like GoWesty, you'll be paying up to $90,000!
The thing is, that's not entirely crazy. If spending tens of thousands of dollars on a track toy that'll see use no more than two weekends a month isn't nutty, then buying a rolling house that you can park pretty much anywhere makes sense too. Most of the converted vans pack more power with either VW or Subaru engine swaps, and the all-wheel drive Syncro variant can be turned into a genuine off-road beast.
Plus there's just something so appealing about the restless spirit of a Westfalia, that sense that you could hit the side-roads and just drive until dark, going wherever the road takes you. If the automobile represents freedom, then this must be the ultimate distillation of that spirit: the ability to take your bed and kitchen with you.
The characters you find along the way all seem to be part of one big happy family, always stopping to chat or help a stranded Westy out. There's a network of specialist shops right across the Pacific Northwest, and you'd hardly ever find yourself stranded, assuming you do enough preventative maintenance.
In a vehicle that's a mobile camping site, it's not the destination, but the journey. Sure, they're slow, but when you're already where you want to be, what's the rush?
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. If you have a suggestion for a column, or would be interested in having your car club featured, please contact him at mcaleeronwheels@gmail. com. Follow Brendan on Twitter: @brendan_mcaleer.
