Volkswagen began selling vans in the United States in the early 1950s. Sales continued through three generations and through the 1991 model year. There are people who will tell you that VW vans are now far too sought after by enthusiasts to ever show up at the large self-service car graveyards I frequent, but that is wrong. We saw a second-generation van at a yard in Colorado last year, and now here’s a third-generation model currently sitting at a plant in South Carolina.
The T3 Transporter first appeared as a model in the USA in 1980 and was named Vanagon. This name was a mix of “van” and “wagon”, which followed VW’s persistent decades of touting its people carriers as station wagons (to be fair, Detroit did the same with its people carriers). When Toyota tried to sell an American version of the “Van Wagon”-badged MasterAce Surf here in 1984, Volkswagen’s lawyers forced them to change the name to simply “Toyota Van.”
Gasoline-powered Vanagons had air-cooled engines well into 1983 (49hp water-cooled diesel engines were available for the Vanagon in 1982 and 1983), but we can see a radiator in the hood of this van. What is the problem?
The construction plate states that it was used in Hanover, West Germany, in 1982 as a 2.0-liter gasoline model, so there must have been a water boxer replacement later. I saw an ’81 Vanagon with a similar swap in Colorado a few months ago.
The engine was taken by a junkyard buyer before I arrived.
What is unusual is that this van is optionally equipped with an automatic transmission. The water-cooled VW engines were most likely swapped into these vans with output well under 100 horsepower and a curb weight of almost 3,100 pounds, making this machine very, very to accelerate slowly.
Jim Hudson still sells new cars in Colombia, although not Volkswagens these days.
It turns out that the Vanagon shares its wheel bolt pattern with that of the Mercedes-Benz W123. Only one of these wheels is installed, but it looks cool.
It’s not rusty and the interior probably wasn’t that bad when it arrived at the junkyard, but the cost of restoring one of these vans can be prohibitive.
Essentially a European luxury car. With a diesel Vanagon and a load of seven passengers, you’ll want to avoid hills.
The Vanagon was all about performance.
The space of a delivery truck. The comfort of a station wagon. This commercial takes a clever look at Detroit’s recently downsized train cars.