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I normally write up trucks and vans with an eye on how they could be used or repurposed as a do-all traveler for camping, biking, and exploring. Westfalias remove some of the imagination, as they were created for exactly my kind of adventuring. Today’s black Transporter panel van presents the yang to last week’s Westy Hightop yin, cutting the Vanagon’s great lines to their essence by removing most of the windows and doing without any add-ons. The clean, all-business exterior continues in the cab, while the rear area shows the scuffs and bare bones of former commercial use. I am truly in love with the look of this van, and while my mind runs wild thinking of a bed and Porsche motor retrofitted in the rear, the 41k-mile, 52mpg diesel makes it an eminently practical van as is.
Boy, this is a trip down memory lane for me. My second car was very similar to this 1989 Volkswagen Golf in many ways; mine was also a base model with air conditioning, cloth interior with manual windows and Titian red. There were some important differences; I had a 1986 Westmoreland Golf which had CIS injection rather than the later Digifant electronic injection this car has, mine was a 4-door instead of two and when I bought it, it had somewhere around 190,000 miles on the clock. On paper, this is pretty much the car I would have liked to have; a lower mile, clean example of a basic transportation with flare – the Volkswagen Golf is a great hatchback that looked and functioned miles better than most of the competition at the time.
While we only saw a few special edition Volkswagens in the 1980s – mostly Wolfsburg Editions – the amount of special edition VWs available in the European market was staggering. Whether it was a fashion designer or a tribute to a particular sport, it seemed there was a trim package for just about every taste. This particular one, a Cabriolet Bel Air, is one that I haven’t seen before. These Bel Airs were available in three colors, Diamond Silver, Ruby Red or the Blue Pearl we see here, all with color matched Avus wheels and color matched trim. This low mileage example is for sale by the same dealer in Germany that had the BMW L7 we featured last month.
The 1987 Volkswagen Scirocco 16V we featured earlier in the month is now up for auction, still showing about the same low miles on the clock. Why sit there and sulk that Volkswagen won’t bring back the Scirocco when you could have an equally cool vintage one like this?
The below post originally appeared on our site October 5, 2014:
As we round off another Wagon Week here at GCFSB, we’ll take a look at something a little bit different. The original Volkswagen Passat, otherwise known as the Dasher in the US market, would replace the Type 3 in the lineup, ushering in a new era of larger, front-engined, water-cooled vehicles. Successive generations of the Passat would see the car grow further in size, with four-wheel drive as an option on some models. The fifth generation would go on to be quite a success and help drive Volkswagen’s comeback in the US. This early Passat L Variant for sale in Hamburg, Germany isn’t fast, luxurious or flashy, but in Manila Green, is rather eye catching. Rarely do you see them this nicely preserved.
