- Back in `84 on a family holiday around Europe my parents purchased what was an ex-PostNL VW Combi converted into a camper. It had done a lot of miles. We drove it right around Europe with only one breakdown in a small town in Germany that fortunately had a VW mechanic.
But possibly the most memorable time spent in the van was when it came time to sell it.
Next to where the London Eye is now was what was known as "the strip" with a lineup of campers being sold on to newly arrived tourists. I spent two weeks living in the van next to the Thames, a short walk to Waterloo Station and a lot of time just wandering the streets of London alone (as a 14yo).
by bloomingeek
2 subcomments
- Really cool story! It's always been my premise that good maintenance means longevity on vehicles. I keep our vehicles with the idea of "driving the wheels off of them", but always end up giving them to my kids after wanting an upgrade vehicle with some modern tech. (One of them has almost 200K miles on it.)
As for a Honda Element, I've always wanted one, but my wife thinks they're ugly. ;)
- I picked up one as well and even after flying to pick it up and fuel for driving 700 miles back I'm in it less than $4K. My theory was fleet maintenance to some extent mitigated the 330K miles and even if it takes a crate engine to keep it running I probably still get enough value to be worth it. Turns out I got 19 mpg on the drive back and the only thing I've found wrong with it so far is dead battery in a tps. Wrap is goofy looking but at least I'm never going to lose it in a parking lot.
- "Runs and Drives" for $4300 is a bargain. All the other features were a bonus.
by ParanoidShroom
0 subcomment
- Oh man, i rented one of those! I fell in love with the west coast national parks. A month of roadtripping to all those parks. Great memories, sad to see the. Not available anymore.
They are speed limited when you floor it in Nevada tho :)
by Helmut10001
7 subcomments
- Our VW T4 from 2002 has 300k km on it. I consider this half it's total possible mileage, if not less. I wish they would still build reliable cars like these today.
- > random Dutch families who drove it across the US
I’m wondering how much that van has contributed to the population increase of The Netherlands.
- Funny, I just camped next to one on the Oregon coast. Was wondering about the out-of-place paint job.
by Gravityloss
0 subcomment
- Interesting that they replaced the central panel with something more traditional looking?
- Thanks for sharing that, that was just a nice story.
- My kids call those “free candy vans” hah.
- Fleet vehicles are generally not a terrible bet, they've at least been somewhat maintained.
by mschuster91
0 subcomment
- That paintjob reminds me somewhat of the GTA San Andreas campervan of The Truth.
by MrBuddyCasino
1 subcomments
- I can’t find details about their bankruptcy except some platitudes. How does such a business suddenly go broke?
by cucumber3732842
0 subcomment
- A van that's seen a lot of highway miles and was owned by a large fleet is almost always a good bet. It's shuttle services who are skipping everything they can because "lol we're depreciating this over 3yr and then trading in" are who you gotta be worried about.
This is basically a story about who people cut from a filter bubble that circle jerk about Sprinters and Camrys are shocked to find that the most popular fleet van of the 1980s-2010 does in fact live up to it's value prop of delivering boring reliable service to business to which it is just a cost center to be minimized.
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