a 2008 California rhd New Zealand van now in San Francisco California

[Shaun0008]

Hello my name is Sean and I own a 2008 California RHD with a six-speed automatic that was imported from New Zealand to California USA illegally in 2012. the van has less than 75000 km but because of poor maintenance from the previous owner the motor seized up due to never having an oil change I've since got the motor running like a champ I'm fixing a few things that were changed by the previous owner due to the fact and he was in a wheelchair. My biggest issue is getting parts and accessories for the van since T5's were never imported into the United States. As far as I know they're less than three T5's in the whole of the United States. I own quite a few vw's and my main camping Vans have been Syncro T3s I remember a few years back attending years Van Fest with my 79 Westfalia and seeing one of these California vans on display and drooling over it. Now that I have a chance to own one and drive it I must say I'm totally sold I love this van. Because of legality issues in the United States I plan to send this van to Europe to use for the upcoming years to travel around England and the EU once I use it to explore the western part of the United States including Yosemite and Yellowstone Stone Park this coming year.

 

[Hotel California]

Welcome allong , great story !
Love to see pic’s of your trips.
Been a few weeks in CA. and visited San Francisco 15y ago ...very nice city , we also cheked out the nice vacation resort on that island

 

[Shaun0008]

I just returned two weeks ago from a 4 1/2 half month trip with my girlfriend through Africa starting at Cape Town South Africa to Nairobi Kenya it was a total of 15000 km and we drove a 1987 VW T3 Syncro Westfalia I built in America and drove through Europe last year and then sent it from England to Cape Town to do our trip. I plan to send my T5 and leave it in Europe as a base vehicle to explore other parts of Europe I've not been able to see on the other trips that I driven my vw's over the last 10 years. If you have any interest I've listed the blog her trip in Africa that my girlfriend put together while we were there.

http://shaunandcricketsfandbeyond.blog

 

[Camperfamily]

I just returned two weeks ago from a 4 1/2 half month trip with my girlfriend through Africa starting at Cape Town South Africa to Nairobi Kenya it was a total of 15000 km and we drove a 1987 VW T3 Syncro Westfalia I built in America and drove through Europe last year and then sent it from England to Cape Town to do our trip. I plan to send my T5 and leave it in Europe as a base vehicle to explore other parts of Europe I've not been able to see on the other trips that I driven my vw's over the last 10 years. If you have any interest I've listed the blog her trip in Africa that my girlfriend put together while we were there.

http://shaunandcricketsfandbeyond.blog

Hi Shaun, stumbled across this thread and another thread mentioning your van and believe that you have/ had the only registered T5 Cali in the USA. Is it still there or is it in Europe now? Interested to hear updates

 

[Shaun0008]

Funny that you should ask about this van. since my last post about it I've put about 10,000 mi on it camping through California and as far as Arizona without any problems.but the registration is coming up and I thought this would be a good time to send it to Europe and use to travel around Europe for a while once Europe opens back up. So it goes in a container next week. I didn't want to push my luck any longer with the authorities since this car definitely does not belong here in the US. Plus as the car gets older Parts and service become more important and there is no support here for a t5 in the US

 

[Camperfamily]

Funny that you should ask about this van. since my last post about it I've put about 10,000 mi on it camping through California and as far as Arizona without any problems.but the registration is coming up and I thought this would be a good time to send it to Europe and use to travel around Europe for a while once Europe opens back up. So it goes in a container next week. I didn't want to push my luck any longer with the authorities since this car definitely does not belong here in the US. Plus as the car gets older Parts and service become more important and there is no support here for a t5 in the US

That must be one of the best travelled Calis around - 4 years in NZ, 8 years in USA and now to Europe. Brilliant