Used Car of the Day: 1971 Volkswagen Transporter
As I've mentioned a few times when writing this feature, I try to pick interesting stuff, even if the vehicle needs to be restored.
That is the case with this 1971 Volkswagen Transporter.
It clearly needs restoration. There's a manual transmission and a 1,600 cc engine.
The seller says the title is in hand and the seats are in good condition.
There's not much else to the ad copy, but we can tell you the ask is $11,500 and the vehicle is located in Knoxville, Tennessee.
[Images: Seller]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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- Theflyersfan I used to love the 7-series. One of those aspirational luxury cars. And then I parked right next to one of the new ones just over the weekend. And that love went away. Honestly, if this is what the Chinese market thinks is luxury, let them have it. Because, and I'll be reserved here, this is one butt-ugly, mutha f'n, unholy trainwreck of a design. There has to be an excellent car under all of the grotesque and overdone bodywork. What were they thinking? Luxury is a feeling. It's the soft leather seats. It's the solid door thunk. It's groundbreaking engineering (that hopefully holds up.) It's a presence that oozes "I have arrived," not screaming "LOOK AT ME EVERYONE!!!" The latter is the yahoo who just won $1,000,000 off of a scratch-off and blows it on extra chrome and a dozen light bars on a new F150. It isn't six feet of screens, a dozen suspension settings that don't feel right, and no steering feel. It also isn't a design that is going to be so dated looking in five years that no one is going to want to touch it. Didn't BMW learn anything from the Bangle-butt backlash of 2002?
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"Seats are in good condition, covers on them for looks."
If you post the advertising pictures with blankets covering the seats that appear to have been made by the original owners "Nana", I wouldn't even want to see what this sellers' idea of "good condition" is.
Personally I have never understood the appeal of these. Never have been in one, but almost everyone is in agreement that they are noisy, dangerously unsafe, and slower than a pregnant turtle.
Shame about the undercarriage and all the rust. Still, this one will sell. It has always amazed me the prices that these things go for.
T2 was 1967 to 1979 (I'm told).
My uncle had one of these (at a time; I think he went through 2 or 3) and a lot of kids.
At extended family gatherings when it was time to leave (but not really), he would make a pronouncement to 'load em up' and his kids would have to go sit in the 'bus' but the adults would keep jawboning for a quarter hour which left us (the other kids) standing around awkwardly looking upon our imprisoned relatives.
Story time over.
(Later he worked as a new car salesman and then a service writer. Make of that what you will.)