August 18, 2015

ACVWs of SoCentral Montana

This first one is actually from Iowa. The owner and I met on the Itinerant-Air-Cooled forum, and arranged a get-together when he and his family were visiting nearby.




Seen at Wheat Montana, Three Forks.

August 8, 2015

Up and Over

Ludwig and I slipped by this guy going over Homestake Pass, unquestionably the highest point on I-90 (despite the confusion a certain poorly-worded sign in Massachesetts has wrought).

August 4, 2015

Syncro Westfalia

This guy and I chatted for a while last week.
It's a Syncro (4wd) and a Westfalia, but not it's whole life it wasn't. Throwing all rational thought out along with a whole lot of money, the previous owner did it precisely backward.

that gas cap under the passenger-side door is a dead giveaway

Syncro Westies are a rare subtype of an already-rare vehicle; GoWesty claims of the 5,000 or so Syncros sold in the US, fewer than a third were campers. So usually when the itch for a Syncro Westy strikes the heart but the $60,000+ to buy one doesn't strike the wallet, what happens is some hapless, plain old 2wd Vanagon donates its camping outfit to its muscle-bound brother.
Not this previous owner.
He took a hapless, plain old 2wd Vanagon camper and wedged a Syncro drivetrain underneath. Much, much harder.
Everything seemed to be in order (viz., it wasn't a hack) and the present owner-operator pleased, so there's not much fault to find. Still, were it my time and money, I'd just've gone with the
Porsche flat-6 engine swap.