Used 1982 VW Westfalia Vanagon for sale in Santa Cruz, CA

We're selling our beloved 1982 Westfalia. This was our very first VW van which we bought several years ago to determine if we'd use a campervan enough to justify all that goes into owning one. Sure enough, we fell in love with this camper and the campervan lifestyle. We use it constantly! However, we knew from the beginning that if we fell in love with the van life, that we would upgrade to a newer water-cooled model. We have bought a new van and are ready to re-home this darling bus!

We're hoping to find a buyer that will really love and appreciate this van and who will continue on with our work to upgrade and improve it. When we bought it, it hadn't been well maintained and we've made a lot of improvements over the past couple of years.

This van has loads of charm and character and we get compliments everywhere we go!

The Basics:
1982 VW Westfalia Vanagon pop top camper, 193k original miles (has a new engine less than 1 year old). It has 2 beds and sleeps 4. Manual transmission and air-cooled. We had a pre-purchase inspection completed on 4/27/21 and the van is in good shape mechanically.

Improvements:
In the last year alone, we’ve invested thousands of $$ in some crucial mechanical and functional improvements.

Probably the most important and the largest job was the new engine that we had built and installed in May 2020 by the Old Volks Home in Santa Cruz, CA. Under warranty until May 2021.

Also installed front shift link tab; July 2020 new brake pads + disks, replaced shift linkage center and bushings, sealed fuel tank; June 2020 replaced clutch slave cylinder; March 2019 did work necessary for it to pass smog; replaced EGR filter, fixed EGR valve, fixed evap expansion tank; replaced vacuum elbow; fixed vacuum & air hoses; passed smog.

Other improvements:
Installed brand new tent canvas along with new top seals (a real pain in the butt job!).
Removed factory flocking and refurbished inside of the pop top roof with a water-proof marine liner so it won’t mildew or mold as they're prone to do. This was another HUGE pain in the butt job but well worth it!
New rear struts for the back hatch.
We bought brand-new curtains and a snap kit from Go Westy for the front windshield and side door, and will send them along to the new owner. The snaps still need to be installed.
Inside carpeting is all-original and in good shape considering that it's from 1982. Cabinets are original and all look good, though a few of the little latches that keep them closed are losing their spring (we were going to install magnets to keep them closed before we found our new van)

The Bad:
It's an '82 VW and we all know what that means :)
It's 'shabby- chic' and has a multitude of cosmetic blemishes (dents and dings in the bumper and some on the body, some rust spots, paint is fading on the passenger side, it's missing one of its bumper corners, etc). It could really use a new paint job and the rust spots need to be dealt with as soon as possible - that's a much larger job and can be expensive depending on where you live. That would have been our next project if we'd ended up keeping this van.

Feel free to contact me with any questions!