Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Time to Fess Up



I have a confession to make. I sold my motorcycles and bought a VW Vanagon Westfalia. You know, the hippie camper vans. I suppose the 'real' hippie vans are the older air-cooled ones. This model wasn't produced until the '80s, well after the height of the flower power crowd.

Mine is a 1984 Wolfsburg edition in two-tone brown and beige. I've upgraded to larger wheels and tires, and installed a 2.5L Subaru engine out of a 2004 Forester. This upgraded the van's power from around 75hp to about 165hp. Just a little difference ;-)

So, the lady and I will be making our future epic voyages in Sasquatch, our camper van.

Don't worry, i'm still motarded and will have motorcycles again. They will continue to be a life-long passion. But right now, we're having fun trying something a little different. This way, we can travel year round, and can bring gear with us. Like bicycles, backpacking gear, skis, etc. Sasquatch is fairly capable on rough roads and light off-roading too, so we should be able to get most of the places we went on the bike, albeit a bit slower.






2 comments:

Hawktane said...

I've always wanted one of these VW's but the stock low horsepower makes me wary. Is the engine conversion a straight transfer? Or did you have to do a lot fabrication?

Troy said...

There is a kit available. www.smallcar.com

It's still a lot of work, but nowhere near as bad as pioneering it yourself and fabbing up parts.