Longest buying decision in history....

[HectorPascal]

Life must have been easy a few generations ago. What once was: "a cup of your finest coffee good sir" is now a bewildering choice. Loo rolls were yesterday's carefully ripped-up newspapers or, for the early adopters, the new-fangled antiseptic-if a-tad-crispy 'Izal'. Influencers were most likely your parents or, more likely, their parents. Not too much then, to go awry. Not quite the case today for better or worse.

Our own story had its roots back in the early eighties when my father had a cream-coloured T2 (bay-window) made with love by Volkswagen in 1969. I got the chance - at a preternaturally young age - to disappear myself for several trips in this thing with its wheezing 1600cc boxer struggling to hold 65mph on the level and only then with ne'er a whiff of headwind. Happy times and, without knowing it then, a few seeds of destiny were sown.

At least four years ago, we started to look around for something in this mad world that might recapture some of those early joys. The simple, spontaneous pleasures of going places and meeting people. After studying the latest incarnations of this venerable beast, we were somewhat taken aback by the escalation in complexity together with its attendant cost. Goodness. VW were now persuading us that it is entirely normal to pay what, in an earlier age, would have bought us several houses. Proceed with caution, caveat emptor etc. and, we duly decided to do just that.

Afforded the luxury of time, we have rented three times - in fair weather and foul. We have also rented a big white box (just to make sure that was not actually what we wanted we were not wrong). We would have rented the Mercedes offering except Mercedes weren't offering. We looked at HymerCars and others. Juggled with possible knee-jerk shifts in the policies of the governments of the world: would owners of diesels end up in the town stocks with rotten fruit thrown at their heads? Would a new purchase, using most of our nest-eggs, wind up being nationalised by Jezza? Hell, there was a lot to consider and we would jolly-well consider it. VW came along and offered a possible solution to one of their trusty camper's major drawbacks - no loo, shower and lack of space for those intrepid longer trips we rather fancied ourselves undertaking. Then the Grand California (temporarily named the Cali XXL) raised its head. Except this came at the cost of four houses and, two years ago, was right around the corner; In stores soon. Roll up, roll up! Here in Blighty, at least, it still isn't here and there has been plenty of confusing smoke signals regarding specs, weights and widgets that we have rather lost interest. Also, that luxury of time thing I mentioned, well that was melting away like snow on a dyke behind our backs.

So, a few days ago, we did it. We damned well did it. We opted - as an interim measure - while the world sorts itself out - for A two-year old Cali 150, advertised in these very pages by a thoroughly trustworthy and very fastidious owner and member of this club. We have now, after years of faff, done what a lot of you good folk here said to do in the first place, 'stop over-thinking it and buy one - you won't have any regrets'.

For the first time since I started to post here, eagerly seeking advice and airing our thought processes in the hope that it would be of interest to others and maybe cast some light for us, we can actually call us bona fide, paid-up 'Cali owners'. Meanwhile the main thing we have bought ourselves is...time. Time to allow the GC 680 to become established hopefully as a worthy big brother to the existing Cali. Time for the ever more fractious world to come to its senses and find a nice middle way that might satisfy at least half the population whilst we bimble around in our humble 2nd hand Cali just being as nice to people as we can and enjoying this lovely corner of the world.

Be seeing you - or some of you at least.

 

[capt kirk]

its taken me a year to find four mugs for the cali, still looking.

 

[Neilos]

Congrats, I enjoyed your intro very nicely written.

Worst comes to worst you can sell it and do something else. You may lose a few grand but you’d have had the trips and learned a lot. Hiring ain’t cheap I know that. So you only need a few weeks away to cover that loss! It’s funny how we find ways of justifying the cost of these things and then carefully reassuring each other it’s ok!...it is okay by the way...Some people we know spend £120 a month on a sky TV package! I couldn’t justify that, but each to their own I suppose.

Top tip for starting out is don’t pack too much. You’ll kill yourself moving it all around and repacking it all the time. I’m my own worst enemy in this respect but I keep trying to whittle it down. All the best.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kurienp]

Life must have been easy a few generations ago. What once was: "a cup of your finest coffee good sir" is now a bewildering choice. Loo rolls were yesterday's carefully ripped-up newspapers or, for the early adopters, the new-fangled antiseptic-if a-tad-crispy 'Izal'. Influencers were most likely your parents or, more likely, their parents. Not too much then, to go awry. Not quite the case today for better or worse.

Our own story had its roots back in the early eighties when my father had a cream-coloured T2 (bay-window) made with love by Volkswagen in 1969. I got the chance - at a preternaturally young age - to disappear myself for several trips in this thing with its wheezing 1600cc boxer struggling to hold 65mph on the level and only then with ne'er a whiff of headwind. Happy times and, without knowing it then, a few seeds of destiny were sown.

At least four years ago, we started to look around for something in this mad world that might recapture some of those early joys. The simple, spontaneous pleasures of going places and meeting people. After studying the latest incarnations of this venerable beast, we were somewhat taken aback by the escalation in complexity together with its attendant cost. Goodness. VW were now persuading us that it is entirely normal to pay what, in an earlier age, would have bought us several houses. Proceed with caution, caveat emptor etc. and, we duly decided to do just that.

Afforded the luxury of time, we have rented three times - in fair weather and foul. We have also rented a big white box (just to make sure that was not actually what we wanted we were not wrong). We would have rented the Mercedes offering except Mercedes weren't offering. We looked at HymerCars and others. Juggled with possible knee-jerk shifts in the policies of the governments of the world: would owners of diesels end up in the town stocks with rotten fruit thrown at their heads? Would a new purchase, using most of our nest-eggs, wind up being nationalised by Jezza? Hell, there was a lot to consider and we would jolly-well consider it. VW came along and offered a possible solution to one of their trusty camper's major drawbacks - no loo, shower and lack of space for those intrepid longer trips we rather fancied ourselves undertaking. Then the Grand California (temporarily named the Cali XXL) raised its head. Except this came at the cost of four houses and, two years ago, was right around the corner; In stores soon. Roll up, roll up! Here in Blighty, at least, it still isn't here and there has been plenty of confusing smoke signals regarding specs, weights and widgets that we have rather lost interest. Also, that luxury of time thing I mentioned, well that was melting away like snow on a dyke behind our backs.

So, a few days ago, we did it. We damned well did it. We opted - as an interim measure - while the world sorts itself out - for A two-year old Cali 150, advertised in these very pages by a thoroughly trustworthy and very fastidious owner and member of this club. We have now, after years of faff, done what a lot of you good folk here said to do in the first place, 'stop over-thinking it and buy one - you won't have any regrets'.

For the first time since I started to post here, eagerly seeking advice and airing our thought processes in the hope that it would be of interest to others and maybe cast some light for us, we can actually call us bona fide, paid-up 'Cali owners'. Meanwhile the main thing we have bought ourselves is...time. Time to allow the GC 680 to become established hopefully as a worthy big brother to the existing Cali. Time for the ever more fractious world to come to its senses and find a nice middle way that might satisfy at least half the population whilst we bimble around in our humble 2nd hand Cali just being as nice to people as we can and enjoying this lovely corner of the world.

Be seeing you - or some of you at least.

HectorPascal, that is so nicely written - we would encourage you to put pen to paper when you use your Cali and have adventures in it. Take us along with this great writing skill.

 

[Perfectos]

May your memories be as well constructed and long as your eloquent posts !

I think you will not regret your decision

You’ve only gone and bloody done it

 

[WelshGas]

Life must have been easy a few generations ago. What once was: "a cup of your finest coffee good sir" is now a bewildering choice. Loo rolls were yesterday's carefully ripped-up newspapers or, for the early adopters, the new-fangled antiseptic-if a-tad-crispy 'Izal'. Influencers were most likely your parents or, more likely, their parents. Not too much then, to go awry. Not quite the case today for better or worse.

Our own story had its roots back in the early eighties when my father had a cream-coloured T2 (bay-window) made with love by Volkswagen in 1969. I got the chance - at a preternaturally young age - to disappear myself for several trips in this thing with its wheezing 1600cc boxer struggling to hold 65mph on the level and only then with ne'er a whiff of headwind. Happy times and, without knowing it then, a few seeds of destiny were sown.

At least four years ago, we started to look around for something in this mad world that might recapture some of those early joys. The simple, spontaneous pleasures of going places and meeting people. After studying the latest incarnations of this venerable beast, we were somewhat taken aback by the escalation in complexity together with its attendant cost. Goodness. VW were now persuading us that it is entirely normal to pay what, in an earlier age, would have bought us several houses. Proceed with caution, caveat emptor etc. and, we duly decided to do just that.

Afforded the luxury of time, we have rented three times - in fair weather and foul. We have also rented a big white box (just to make sure that was not actually what we wanted we were not wrong). We would have rented the Mercedes offering except Mercedes weren't offering. We looked at HymerCars and others. Juggled with possible knee-jerk shifts in the policies of the governments of the world: would owners of diesels end up in the town stocks with rotten fruit thrown at their heads? Would a new purchase, using most of our nest-eggs, wind up being nationalised by Jezza? Hell, there was a lot to consider and we would jolly-well consider it. VW came along and offered a possible solution to one of their trusty camper's major drawbacks - no loo, shower and lack of space for those intrepid longer trips we rather fancied ourselves undertaking. Then the Grand California (temporarily named the Cali XXL) raised its head. Except this came at the cost of four houses and, two years ago, was right around the corner; In stores soon. Roll up, roll up! Here in Blighty, at least, it still isn't here and there has been plenty of confusing smoke signals regarding specs, weights and widgets that we have rather lost interest. Also, that luxury of time thing I mentioned, well that was melting away like snow on a dyke behind our backs.

So, a few days ago, we did it. We damned well did it. We opted - as an interim measure - while the world sorts itself out - for A two-year old Cali 150, advertised in these very pages by a thoroughly trustworthy and very fastidious owner and member of this club. We have now, after years of faff, done what a lot of you good folk here said to do in the first place, 'stop over-thinking it and buy one - you won't have any regrets'.

For the first time since I started to post here, eagerly seeking advice and airing our thought processes in the hope that it would be of interest to others and maybe cast some light for us, we can actually call us bona fide, paid-up 'Cali owners'. Meanwhile the main thing we have bought ourselves is...time. Time to allow the GC 680 to become established hopefully as a worthy big brother to the existing Cali. Time for the ever more fractious world to come to its senses and find a nice middle way that might satisfy at least half the population whilst we bimble around in our humble 2nd hand Cali just being as nice to people as we can and enjoying this lovely corner of the world.

Be seeing you - or some of you at least.

Well done, excellent. I hope you don't take so long for your first trip even if its just a run to the coast to watch the waves sat in your own mobile coffee shop with the heater on.

 

[Karlos]

Life must have been easy a few generations ago. What once was: "a cup of your finest coffee good sir" is now a bewildering choice. Loo rolls were yesterday's carefully ripped-up newspapers or, for the early adopters, the new-fangled antiseptic-if a-tad-crispy 'Izal'. Influencers were most likely your parents or, more likely, their parents. Not too much then, to go awry. Not quite the case today for better or worse.

Our own story had its roots back in the early eighties when my father had a cream-coloured T2 (bay-window) made with love by Volkswagen in 1969. I got the chance - at a preternaturally young age - to disappear myself for several trips in this thing with its wheezing 1600cc boxer struggling to hold 65mph on the level and only then with ne'er a whiff of headwind. Happy times and, without knowing it then, a few seeds of destiny were sown.

At least four years ago, we started to look around for something in this mad world that might recapture some of those early joys. The simple, spontaneous pleasures of going places and meeting people. After studying the latest incarnations of this venerable beast, we were somewhat taken aback by the escalation in complexity together with its attendant cost. Goodness. VW were now persuading us that it is entirely normal to pay what, in an earlier age, would have bought us several houses. Proceed with caution, caveat emptor etc. and, we duly decided to do just that.

Afforded the luxury of time, we have rented three times - in fair weather and foul. We have also rented a big white box (just to make sure that was not actually what we wanted we were not wrong). We would have rented the Mercedes offering except Mercedes weren't offering. We looked at HymerCars and others. Juggled with possible knee-jerk shifts in the policies of the governments of the world: would owners of diesels end up in the town stocks with rotten fruit thrown at their heads? Would a new purchase, using most of our nest-eggs, wind up being nationalised by Jezza? Hell, there was a lot to consider and we would jolly-well consider it. VW came along and offered a possible solution to one of their trusty camper's major drawbacks - no loo, shower and lack of space for those intrepid longer trips we rather fancied ourselves undertaking. Then the Grand California (temporarily named the Cali XXL) raised its head. Except this came at the cost of four houses and, two years ago, was right around the corner; In stores soon. Roll up, roll up! Here in Blighty, at least, it still isn't here and there has been plenty of confusing smoke signals regarding specs, weights and widgets that we have rather lost interest. Also, that luxury of time thing I mentioned, well that was melting away like snow on a dyke behind our backs.

So, a few days ago, we did it. We damned well did it. We opted - as an interim measure - while the world sorts itself out - for A two-year old Cali 150, advertised in these very pages by a thoroughly trustworthy and very fastidious owner and member of this club. We have now, after years of faff, done what a lot of you good folk here said to do in the first place, 'stop over-thinking it and buy one - you won't have any regrets'.

For the first time since I started to post here, eagerly seeking advice and airing our thought processes in the hope that it would be of interest to others and maybe cast some light for us, we can actually call us bona fide, paid-up 'Cali owners'. Meanwhile the main thing we have bought ourselves is...time. Time to allow the GC 680 to become established hopefully as a worthy big brother to the existing Cali. Time for the ever more fractious world to come to its senses and find a nice middle way that might satisfy at least half the population whilst we bimble around in our humble 2nd hand Cali just being as nice to people as we can and enjoying this lovely corner of the world.

Be seeing you - or some of you at least.

Beautifully written HectorPascal. I hope you enjoy your cali and the adventures it will bring.Neilos is right try to pack light and there will be plenty of space.