In a 1994 Swedish crash test, a Vanagon driver hit head-on by a Volvo wagon registered a head injury score of just 155 — the Volvo's own driver scored 3868, more than triple the 1000 mark considered fatal.
Median 68 hp across 55 similar cars
Lead trim: 1.6 air-cooled Type 1 (50 hp) · up to 95 hp
Volkswagen Type 2 T3 "Vanagon"T3 · 1979–1992
- 0spots by members
- Unclaimednobody has spotted one yet
- 0sets it belongs to
Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Volkswagen Type 2 T3 "Vanagon" yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactIn a 1994 Swedish crash test, a Vanagon driver hit head-on by a Volvo wagon registered a head injury score of just 155 — the Volvo's own driver scored 3868, more than triple the 1000 mark considered fatal.
The third-generation Volkswagen Transporter, sold as the Transporter or Caravelle in Europe and Australia and as the Vanagon (van plus station wagon) in the Americas. It is larger, heavier and more angular than the T2 but keeps the rear-engine, cab-over layout, and was the last rear-engined Volkswagen. Air-cooled flat-fours ran to mid-1983, when the water-cooled "Wasserboxer" took over (a turbodiesel followed in January 1985). Hannover built it from 1978 to 1991; the four-wheel-drive Syncro, engineered by Steyr-Daimler-Puch at Graz, debuted at the Brussels Commercial Vehicle Show in January 1985 with the 78 PS 1.9 L Wasserboxer and a "4+G" gearbox (G for Gelände, a low gear), and Syncro production ran to 1992. South African production continued for that market alone until 2002. Westfalia campers were sold throughout, and the US Army and Air Force in Germany used T3s as administrative vehicles.
Collectors Spotted in the Volkswagen Type 2 Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Volkswagen Type 2 yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
4 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.6 air-cooled Type 1 (50 hp) | 1979–1983 | 1.6 L Flat-4 | 50 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| 1.9 Wasserboxer Digijet (83 hp) | 1983–1985 | 1.9 L Flat-4 | 83 hp | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2.0 air-cooled Type 4 (70 hp) | 1980–1983 | 2.0 L Flat-4 | 70 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| 2.1 Wasserboxer Digifant (95 hp) | 1986–1991 | 2.1 L Flat-4 | 95 hp | — | — | — | — | — |
Owning one
An estimate, for the 1.6 air-cooled Type 1 (50 hp) trim: fuel on its EPA figure and a dated national price, upkeep on a per-mile average for the kind of car it is.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
In a 1994 Swedish crash test, a Vanagon driver hit head-on by a Volvo wagon registered a head injury score of just 155 — the Volvo's own driver scored 3868, more than triple the 1000 mark considered fatal.
The boxy Bay Window bus was slipperier through the air than you'd guess — splitting the windshield into a 'vee' actually gave it a lower drag coefficient than the Beetle.
The whole idea for the VW bus traces back to one doodle: Dutch importer Ben Pon's April 1947 sketch of a flat-fronted parts-mover — the original drawing now hangs in the Rijksmuseum.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
Chevy pitched the Astro as the anti-minivan, telling buyers life was too big for one, while it rode on a rear-wheel-drive truck frame.
The IIHS rated the Astro Poor in a 1996 crash test, yet 2001–2004 Astros later had the lowest driver death rate of any US passenger vehicle.
The boxy, unglamorous Astro quietly posted one of the best real-world safety records in America: IIHS found 2001-2004 models had the fewest driver deaths per million vehicles of any passenger vehicle on US roads.
The third-generation Tourneo Connect, released in Europe in October 2021, is a rebadged fourth-generation Volkswagen Caddy, assembled by Volkswagen in Poland.
Ford beat the 25% "chicken tax" by importing the Transit Connect as a passenger van — rear windows and seats included, then stripped out and recycled once it landed in the US.
Ford spent years in federal court over the second-gen Transit Connect: in June 2019 the US won its appeal, and judges ruled the van was cargo-only — ending Ford's workaround for the 'chicken tax.'
GM sold a rebadged Nissan NV200 as the Chevy City Express for four years, then killed it in 2018, citing weak sales and the fact that its parts weren't even compatible with GM's own parts catalog.
Its name is a pun: "S-Cargo" means "Small Cargo" but sounds just like escargot — French for snail, the shape the whole van was built to resemble.