If you’ve always fancied taking an exotic road trip in a faraway location, it’s more than likely the idea of a Volkswagen camper van, the Wild West and southern California beaches has crossed your mind. Unoriginal perhaps, but maybe no vehicle quite captures the essence of lush So-Cal campsites and highways stretching as far as the eye can see as the VW camper.
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It’s a great outdoor institution, and one celebrating an anniversary of sorts this year. Volkswagen’s iconic Type 2 Transporter arrived in the fifties and is synonymous with sixties Californian counter-culture, but 2018 marks three decades of the sleeper van wearing its California badge.
• Volkswagen California reviews
To celebrate the occasion, we took the latest version on a three-day tour around the south of its namesake state, to see if the cliché Californian road trip lives up to the hype. Firstly, where did the California name come from? Prior to 1988 you wouldn’t find it on any VW van, and nor was it the firm’s brainchild. Westfalia-converted T3 generation vans, T25s to UK fans, take that honour, with the California name attached to an updated version of the Westfalia Joker, produced since 1979.
The California was aimed specifically at summer campers and available with a pop-up or high-top fixed roof. A sister van, the Westfalia Atlantic, was designed with year-round outdoor pursuits in mind. At launch, the 1988 California had a 39,900 deutschmark price tag (around £17,000 in today’s money) after tax in Germany for the most basic version, with a 77bhp, 1.9-litre petrol engine.
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Publish date : 2018-05-25 13:00:00
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