Pics of my "new" '88 Wolfsburg

[Volksaholic]

I had threatened pics before. Despite the surprises I've posted in other threads, I think it's going to be a sweet van. We were specifically looking for a Weekender layout with stick shift. I would have liked a pop-top, but the manual trans was more important to me. This thing was advertised as being "over maintained" but I'm realizing that's not the case! I don't think the guy was being dishonest... he bought it last November and parked it on the farm with who-knows-how-many other VWs.

[Volksaholic]

It's got more little dings and scratches than he described, but there are only the slightest hints of rust starting. The body is actually in very nice shape.

I noticed that these pics were taken after I pulled the front spoiler off... it just drags on the driveway... no point in destroying it.

It's even got a sturdy trailer hitch (unfortunately not a receiver) that will facilitate pulling our little sailboats and utility trailer.

[Volksaholic]

The interior is in very decent shape except a patch of like melted or burned upholstery on one of the jump seats and a duct-taped hole in one of the rear head rests. The carpet is nearly immaculate... it's been covered with some other carpet as seen in these pics. Everything is a little grungy, but not downright nasty and it looks like it will clean up beautifully.

The curtains are all intact and cleaned up nicely thanks to your advice. The speedometer cable was broken, but the van seems to run strong, shift smoothly, and handle like a big, steel shoe-box should handle.

I bought it sight-unseen and had it shipped to Utah. I did have a friend in PA check it out for me. The guy had a stack of receipts that my friend saw but he forgot to ship them with the van. I called him on Tuesday and he called me back today wondering if the receipts showed up. Supposedly they show that quite a bit of work has been done by the VW dealership in PA... I hope that's true because my purchase decision was patially based on the work he said was done.

I'm looking forward to our first family camping trip in the Wolfsburg on April 5 through 9!

Paul

[ghar21]

Great buy man. If you dont mind my asking what is the avg price for a vehicle to be deliver that type of distance?

[Volksaholic]

I found a site that puts your name out to 6 companies that can arrange the deal and they compete for your business. I don't recall the site name, but it came up pretty quickly when I Googled to find a shipper.

The quotes were all in the $900 to $1300 range. I don't know if that's "average", but it was about what I expected. The company I went with charged $1020, the trucker got $900, and the company included a rebate voucher for $100 of free gas. I thought that was a decent deal.

If I'd had more time I had considered flying out and driving the van back. That probably would have cost me $700 minimum with air fare and gas and such, and it makes me nervous driving a vehicle essentially in unknown condition that distance. In fact, if you read the failed emissions thread... I wouldn't have found out that it was running rich until I had driven 2800 miles or whatever it is. My fuel costs would have come out much higher than my estimates... I probably would have spent $900 and had to catch up on obligations here at home. I made the right choice.

[Tank83]

Your Bus looks very good!
It's nice to see the little differences between german vanagon and the US model.