Grand California 600 Road tests

[Henry Walpole]

A couple of road tests now on Youtube. They're in German but the videos do give a good look inside and outside of the vehicle.

 

[TripleBee]

Just a little side note.
Who else thinks that VW should not use the name California for this?
This is a complete other campervan.
California is the Transporter with a pop up tent.

They should use Florida or Miami or something like that.

 

[Wongo]

Yes I wondered that, the old ‘Florida’ was based on the LT, maybe Westfalia kept the name?

 

[Volkywagen]

The new ‘great white’, in a showroom soon

 

[Adeybruce]

There was clearly a VW press outing last week, as articles have popped-up everywhere. Most of the journalists are fawning over it, but aren’t a tough crowd to please with comments like, ‘it’s even got a sink and stove’ suggesting they’re not going to dig deep.
The best (ie most critical) I read was in Der Spiegel and includes photos of areas not seen in previous pictures (ie, what do the front curtains look like etc).
The key areas of concern are:
- the front table shouldn’t be used when driving, but there’s nowhere handy to store it (apparently it’s meant to be strapped under the rear bed)
- the 600’s upper bed ladder competely gets in the way when in place
- storage space in those sexy rear cupboards in remarkable limited
Otherwise it’s looks like an accomplished conversion, based on a highly acclaimed chassis.
Paste the link into Google translate to have a read:

Volkswagen Grand California: Erste Fahrt im großen Bulli

VW bringt mit dem Grand California einen XXL-Bulli auf den Markt. Wer sein Gepäck im Camper verstauen will, sollte sich vorher allerdings mit der Zubereitung einer japanischen Speise vertraut machen: dem Sushi.

www.spiegel.de

 

[Henry Walpole]

Agreed the press were fawning and not very critical, looks like they got a jolly in the Canaries to test it. When you see comments like "Heating the 110-litre water tank takes 10-15 minutes." (in Car magazine) you realise they don't really understand the camper van side of things.

I noticed the ladder gets in the way on the 600 but then again with most drop down / over cab beds the lounge is going to be unusable when the bed is in use.
Can't see anyone wanting to go to the trouble of strapping the front table under the rear bed (especially if it's raining!).

 

[VWDrooper]

My main gripe is that ducting in the overhead lockers making a restricted space worse, noticed it on the model at the NEC but was hoping that was just a pre-production issue sadly not

 

[Adeybruce]

Just a little side note.
Who else thinks that VW should not use the name California for this?
This is a complete other campervan.
California is the Transporter with a pop up tent.

They should use Florida or Miami or something like that.

I’ve owned every variant of the California, and for me the T25 was the best. Many would say the name only belongs on a Westfalia.
But what’s in a name!. I’ve ordered a German GC 680 which arrives in 2 months. Let a see what it’s like!

My main gripe is that ducting in the overhead lockers making a restricted space worse, noticed it on the model at the NEC but was hoping that was just a pre-production issue sadly not

I saw that, and was hoping the same. Those cupboards could have stood a chance of being useful without the duct.

 

[VWDrooper]

I saw that, and was hoping the same. Those cupboards could have stood a chance of being useful without the duct.

Perhaps something that will get ironed out as time goes on along with the lack of window blinds