In Search of the Perfect BMX Car: VW Micro Bus
The Shorty’s Pizza Shop Van
I’ve become a fan of the show Wheeler Dealers on HDTV. It’s a British show where a kind of annoying car salesman buys up old cars for not that much money, gives them to his friend – a surfer who apparently suffers from giantism – to fix up, and then sells them for not that much money plus not that much money. A couple of weeks ago they did a VW Micro Bus, which they converted into the perfect surf vehicle and which the giant surfer promptly bought for himself.
All the things that make the Bus a perfect surf vehicle make it a perfect BMX vehicle. It’s cheap, big enough to carry a bunch of your friends inside and a bunch of your gear on the roof. It has possibly the single most insane aftermarket of any vehicle, ever, ranging from hot rod to camper transformations and it is from an era where “Volkswagen” wasn’t German for “electrical problems.”
The only real downsides have to do with the driving experience. The VW Microbus in full tune makes about the same horsepower as a Suzuki SV (the motorcycle everyone suggest for those who’ve never ridden a motorcycle) and handles about as well as your couch on casters. But the fact is, you don’t buy one of these for driving excitement. You buy one for vibe, which it has in spades.
If you’ve got five grand burning a hole in your pocket, you could do a lot worse than a pristine, restored example of one of these for your bike hauling duties.
