Junkyard Find: 1977 Volkswagen Westfalia Campmobile
Volkswagen Transporters with the factory Westfalia treatment tend to sell for good money even when they're a bit rough around the edges, so you'd think they'd be virtually nonexistent in your local Ewe Pullet, right? Not so! Here's a Sage Green T2 Campmobile with its pop-up tent deployed, found in a Northern California car graveyard.
This is the first discarded T2 Westfalia I've documented, but I've found several T3 aka Vanagon Westfalias during my junkyard travels ( plus a few non-Westy T2s along the way).
The Moss Landing Pick-n-Pull offered a bonanza of interesting machinery during my visit back in June. Here's a Super Beetle one row down.
Nearby was this pretty solid W110 Mercedes-Benz. I also found a 1985 Toyota Camry with 648,920 miles, a 1994 Dodge Caravan with 434,475 miles, a 1965 Volvo Amazon wagon with goodbye note written in Sharpie by its final owner, a 1971 Opel GT, a 1980 Honda Accord hatchback and a 1987 Mazda 323 that looked like it left the showroom a few months ago.
Air-cooled VWs managed to rust like crazy even in California, but this one has very solid metal even at age 47. Unfortunately, it appears to have been distorted into an uneven shape by multiple hard impacts.
If I had to guess, I'd say that it tipped onto its left side and slid a fair distance.
Other companies built camper conversions of the T2 over the years, but this one appears to be a real Westfalia. Volkswagen of America insisted on calling the passenger version of the Transporter a wagon for decades, but the T2 Westfalia was pitched as the Campmobile.
These vans have a cult-like following in the United States, but even the most devoted T2 Westy aficionado would have been put off by the very bent structure of this van.
The interior appointments have seen better days. This junkyard is quite close to Santa Cruz, so we can assume that many a doob was burned in here over the years.
The engine in the U.S.-market 1977 Transporter was a 2.0-liter Type 4 boxer-four, rated at 67 horsepower and 101 pound-feet.
67 horsepower moving 3,304 pounds resulted in a catastrophically slow vehicle, even by the lax standards of the Middle Malaise Era. Every one of those air-cooled horses had to haul 49.3 pounds, which makes the 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage and its 26.7 pounds per horse seem like a Top Fuel dragster by comparison.
If that wasn't slow enough for a Transporter buyer in 1977, there was always the optional automatic transmission. This one has the base four-speed manual.
Worth restoring? I'd say not, although there were still some good parts on this van when I saw it.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
1977 Volkswagen Transporter Westfalia in Northern California wrecking yard.
[Images: Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Perfect for Tim's used cadaver, oops, car of the day.
Manosphere grifters, racists, misogynists, deluded boomers, incels, craptobros, Muskrats, Qnutz, Xian fundies, MMA/WWF seat sniffers, Maggat cultists, paid putin shills, Ammosexuals, Groyper kiddy fiddlers, and selfhating GOP gays make the weirdest Venn Diagram. Did i miss anyone?