van guy

i had spotted a guy on the personals recently who was traveling around the country, living in a diesel westy. on a whim last week i decided to write to him, though i didn't think much would come of it, given that he'd obviously be moving on soon and we didn't have much else in common besides an interest in diesel vw camper vans.

well it turned out that we actually did have stuff in common-- some music stuff, and some general lifestyle stuff-- in fact i think it kind of freaked him out a little. oh and it turns out he used to be a database programmer back in the early days of the web.

so anyway, last night i went to this art opening with georg and sarah, then we went to dinner. van guy wound up meeting us at the restaurant.

turned out the art opening was two doors down from the new location of the untidy museum , so we went down there for a bit after the show. i spotted this excellent twiggy-style cloche hat and got sarah to try it on ; it was so damn perfect for her. she says she's going to go back and get it.

so van guy showed up after we'd finished eating, but georg and sarah were good enough to stick around for a while, which was nice for me because meeting new people like that always makes me really nervous and anxious.

anyway, he and i stayed and talked for a long time after they left; in fact, we closed the place down, then went out to the van and talked til about 2am in the van, which is like a little studio apartment on wheels.

i'm going to get into some vw geek stuff here so just skip this next bit if that's not your thing :)

the van is an '82 diesel vanagon camper. he said that although vw claims to have imported diesel campers to the US in '83 and '84 as well, no one has ever seen one that isn't an '82. it's woefully underpowered-- they basically stuck the rabbit diesel engine into it. the engine is in the back, but of course being a diesel it needed a radiator which is in the front (i don't think there's such a thing as an aircooled diesel... anyone care to set me straight on that?).

in addition to being unique for being a diesel camper, it also has a little diesel powered heater which doesn't drain the battery (i assume), and he said that those are actually quite unusual.

the van as a whole is in excellent condition-- startlingly good condition, actually-- and he said he decided to not drive it over 55 since, well, a) most of the time he can't and b) it would kill the engine in a year or two most likely.

so i told him that if he ever sells it to let me know cause i would almost certainly buy it from him if it's still running :)

it was a great little place to hang out; there's a bench seat in the back that's like a little sofa; he'd put an mp3 cd player in as the stereo, which came with a remote, so he could play music without having to get up; the little diesel heater was actually quite effective, and he pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge (it's got a fridge, stove and sink).

stuff he added to it includes an extra battery under the front seat which charges off the engine, and runs the auxilliary stuff-- stove, lights, fridge, and a power inverter that he added so he can plug in his laptop and stuff.

anyway, it's too bad i didn't write to him sooner since he's at the end of his time in NC, but i guess it would just be frustrating anyway, since we seem to get along, and have stuff in common, and will probably never see each other again.

Posted by lisa at November 16, 2003 12:44 PM | TrackBack