Rare Rides: A 1987 Volkswagen Doka, Hailing From Forbidden Manual Diesel Land

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

A familiar German visage greets the casual onlooker. “Ah yes, this is a Vanagon,” the American viewer thinks to himself. But once the eyes have scanned beyond the upright frontage and to the side of this white rectangle, a problem comes to light. Those eyes dart to and fro in disbelief. What should be there — the rest of the Vanagon — isn’t.

That’s because this is a Doka, and it’s the verboten manual diesel van-truck of your dreams.

Throughout the 1980s and until 1991, the Volkswagen T2 Transporter was available in U.S. Volkswagen showrooms as the Vanagon. With rear-drive or Syncro 4×4, Americans could buy the standard passenger van or Westfalia camper. Other markets around the world had more choice: Additional gasoline and diesel engines, more doors, larger camper options — you name it.

The Doka we have here is the three-door crew cab truck version of the Transporter, with the engine residing underneath the flat bed. It’s like the German successor to the charming Chevrolet Corvair Rampside.

As an aside, the Doka still persists today as a version of the global Transporter van. However, it has certainly lost some of the charm it once had, sporting a less well-integrated bed. The current version appears much more a utility afterthought.

The image above is of a concept yet to see actual production. It’s the Tristar, and takes the original idea of the Doka and adds mobile office features for the contractor on the go. I like it.

But back in reality, the Doka is presently listed on Craigslist of Seattle — some miles north of downtown San Francisco. An excited owner imported it from Poland under the 25-year rule, and titled it in Washington state. An unappreciative spouse is forcing the sale, however, if the ad copy is to be believed.

As the headline states, this is a manual diesel example with a 1.9-liter engine (0-60 time = maybe). The seller indicates the 1.9 is very common in the United States, but I’ll let VW aficionados verify the claim.

There’s seating for six people on a comfortable bench, with room in the bed to hold all your weatherproof luggage items.

There’s a big list of replacement parts listed by the current owner, so only cosmetic issues remain. It’s all yours for $16,000. Common abroad but unknown domestically — just what a Rare Ride should be.

H/t to commenter JohnTaurus for showing me this Rare Ride. Have a Rare Rides listing you love? Submit it to editors@ttac.com.

[Images via seller]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • DenverMike DenverMike on Nov 10, 2017

    He told the wife "Yeah I'll just sell it for 16K and all's good". Except he knows he'll just be keeping it, driving it, at that crack pipe price. It's an interesting piece, but it's a $5K truck and he knows it. He could have $50K in it, it's still a $5K truck with special thanks for all the time and money he threw at. I like to throw in the extra "Hey thank your wife for me." even though I never saw her (or know for a fact he's married), when buying cars or trucks for cheap but realistic price guys are taking a huge loss on, but sorry that's the way she goes.

  • VW4motion VW4motion on Nov 10, 2017

    Cory, updated have found the holy grail of Vanagon’s . Fantastic find. Thanks.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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