1985 VW Vanagon Westfalia Camper – 139k Miles – $10k in Mountain View, CA
Updated 3:22pm 12/22/14 : See the comments below from a fan that went and saw this van today, sounds sketchy!
Here’s a reasonable priced Westy available in the heart of Silicon Valley that appeared on craigslist yesterday. This van is a 1985 VW Vanagon Westfalia Camper with 139k original miles, stock manual transmission, stock 1.9L engine and likely a white respray/paint job at some point. I swear I’ve seen this van for sale somewhere else this year, but maybe not? The seller doesn’t provide much more info, so you’ll have to call or email them via the Craigslist Ad. An asking price of $10k in the Bay Area for a nice Westy camper like this isn’t a regular occurrence. If this is legit, it will be gone before Christmas.
I looked at it too. Very rough. Lot’s of mold. Rust top to bottom. Was this a Katrina Kar? More rust than what you would expect.
Rust should basically kill the value if a Westy. Honestly, it’s too expensive to deal with. 3 Grand and part the parts to a good vehicle if worth doing so. Half 10k is still a heavy duty investment in something rotting away.
I just went and had a look at this one. I’d say buyer beware – he’s hiding things. I could hardly breathe when I opened the doors! There’s mold growing inside on the curtains, canvas, etc. It looks and feels like he cleaned it from the obvious things that you see on an initial glance, but look at the hidden corners, and it’s there!
There’s rust all over, but he just top coated it with paint – not even a good paint job! Just painted over the plumbing and electric hookups, didn’t paint inside the door jambs and there’s crooked tape marks around the edges. There’s one area that I noticed where the rust is already bleeding through the new paint! A quick look underneath shows some dents and rust in common areas.
It started OK, but I didn’t bother driving it. It’s a project vehicle. Maybe worth half his asking price, maybe. I’d rather see the rust and know what I’m getting into than having it hidden so I have to work harder just to find it.
Buyer Beware!!!!!
Thanks for the tips!!! Gotta love when readers follow up like this, thank you so much!