► Having Green on VW culture
► VW vans from the past
► And the future
About a month ago, just after the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson died, I hankered to drive a Volkswagen ID. Buzz. Its style and character are based on the old VW Camper or, as it was known in other markets, the Bus (USA) or Kombi (Australia). It was a happy vehicle that, despite its German commercial-van roots, epitomised a fun-loving counterculture.
In my country of birth, Australia, and in Southern California, it was as much part of the surf-and-sand scene as the Beach Boys or the bikini. In San Francisco it was better associated with flower power, hippies and getting high. In the UK it was the favoured vehicle for camping and music festivals.
In less fun-loving Germany, it was the pre-eminent working van, better associated with butchers and builders than beachgoers or beatniks. There has surely never been a vehicle of so many different characters or hues. Only the Beetle comes close.
I was reminded of my fondness for these VW vans by Brian Wilson’s death. His songs summed the paradise that was my boyhood. I was brought up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and, in many ways, it was like a Beach Boys song: a utopia of golden beaches, big surf, long summers and pretty girls. Never mind that Brian Wilson couldn’t surf; it was his brother Dennis (on drums) who was the surfer. That didn’t stop Surfin’ USA, California Girls and Good Vibrations becoming the theme tunes of my youth.
The cars were important too. In Sydney’s beach culture that meant two types of vehicles. The first was the local hero, the panel van. This was a uniquely Australian car, a Holden or Ford van wearing shiny big-foot alloys, a 5.0- or 5.7-litre V8 in the nose and painted in sunny-weather-in-the-Pacific colours (purple, orange or bright red). Murals were common.
The cargo area – also known as the bedroom – was invariably fitted with a double bed and hi-fi. Many had cheeky signs in the back window like ‘Don’t laugh, your daughter might be inside’. Nothing produced the cold sweat of fear in fathers of teenage girls than the boyfriend arriving in a panel van.The other favoured beach vehicle was the, also frequently wearing bright colours such as orange, red, yellow, lime green or Pacific blue, contrasted with a second tone of white. They were usually fitted with a bed, big speakers and, if lucky, a kitchenette to chill the beers or Cokes.
So just after Brian Wilson died, and in search of good vibrations, I borrowed a new ID. Buzz and drove it to the beach: to Barmouth in Wales rather than Bondi in New South Wales. (My favoured beach was actually North Curl Curl.)
I liked it enormously. Cheerful, comfortable, spacious, I even liked its touchscreen: easy to navigate and with fine graphics. Plus, I like a good cab-forward van. There is superb front visibility and, with its square style, it’s easy to position on a winding Welsh secondary.
Ride was good, performance perfectly satisfactory. Even the public charging worked. Although, as always with an EV when far from home, there is a frisson of fear when the charge dips below 20 per cent.
It may have the cheerful style and colourful palette of the old Camper/Kombi but of course the driving experience is very different. The old van was slow and noisy, the overworked little air-cooled flat-four thrumming its cheerful but exhausted tune behind you. The vibrations may have been good, but they were also plentiful. The gearshift was long of throw and notchy, the dashboard minimalist, and its only obvious safety feature was its slowness.
The new ID. Buzz is much faster, much smoother, far more luxurious and, as always these days, far heavier (2700kg as tested compared with, typically, 1700-2000kg depending on the old van’s furniture and fittings).
In Barmouth it was raining, windy and cold. Yet the tourist shops sold fridge magnets and cups and T-shirts featuring colourful old Camper vans in very non-Barmouth beach scenes, including palm trees and bright sun and pretty girls in bikinis. And just as the Beach Boys made people happy, so did old Camper vans, and so did the ID. Buzz as we steered it back to London.