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I love the VW T3 DoKa, especially in Syncro trim, but today we have a beautiful example of the earlier T2 DoKa. It’s about as utilitarian as a 50hp air-cooled truck can be, seating 6 and with plenty of bed to haul light but voluminous loads. With year-old exterior paint and a brand-new rebuild, this Bustruck is sure to garner lots of attention. The interior displays its 46 years a little more clearly, with some original paint and decades of use showing through. The seats look to be in good shape though. A nice carpet set would probably clean that up the floors a bit, but overall the interior keeps this from being a total resto-creampuff. In my eyes that’s for the best because you can look good while putting it to work, but the seller is still expecting over $20k for it.
If it weren’t for trade wars, we might still be able to buy Volkswagen commercial vehicles in the US to this day. Every time I see articles on social media from Volkswagen touting new developments with their Transporter range, I pine for the days when you could still buy a Eurovan stateside. Sure, these vans always lurked at the back of the showroom, but I always marveled at how functional and sturdy they were. With everyone clamoring to buy SUVs this was an unorthodox choice for a people mover, but you still seem them on the road occasionally. Something about them still appeals to the inner anorak in me.
Dial back a few decades before the Chicken Tax came into effect, and you could spec a pickup body based on the old Volkswagen Bus. This 1964 Type 2 Double Cab for sale in Minnesota has an upgraded 12 volt electrical system, newly rebuilt 1600cc motor and wears a patina that wouldn’t make you shy using it for hauling duties.
It’s not every day a car gets edged out of a particular marketplace due to legislation, but you are looking at one example right here. The Volkswagen Type 2 pickup. After World War II, France and West Germany placed a duty on imported US chicken. The US government’s response: tax a bunch of goods imported from Europe, including light duty pickups. Thus, in 1971, it would be the end of the road for this workhorse of a people’s car, the likes of which would never been seen in dealers this side of the Atlantic again. Thankfully, the T1 and T2 VW vans are a bit of a cult car, with the pickup variants enjoying a bit of the popularity. As a result, it’s not terribly uncommon to come across one of these trucks stateside. This 1969 Double Cab pickup has undergone a complete restoration, which begs the question: do you dare mess up a good thing and test its utility?
My wife and I have recently had discussions about what is the perfect Providence commuter vehicle once again, with mixed results. You see, we’d like to own something nice and high performance such as a E46 BMW M3. But there are several things counting against that; first, driving a low slung, high performance car around the “streets” of Providence is akin to entering a Group C prototype into the Dakar Rally. Second, you gain attention of the wrong characters in the city. Third, you can never realize the performance of the car in a city setting. Sure, it looks great parked, but why go through the bother? My wife’s solution is something like the 250GD Nate wrote up yesterday. Indeed, it’s the first car she’s commented on in a long time in a positive manner. She likes the rugged simplicity of the G-Wagen, the understated aggression, and the upright, go anywhere, in your face attitude. “Just wait until tomorrow”, I said, “I have something even better”:
It’s always a surprise to me the cars and trucks that cause the most commotion here on GCFSB. Two weeks ago, we featured a 1971…
