Yes, the Beach had become too expensive. It was almost as if VW were punishing Beach customers for wanting to buy one. If you wanted a good spec then they really rubbed their hands with glee. Further more VW seemed to put much more effort and emphasis on marketing the Ocean whilst treating the Beach as more of an afterthought. That approach even seemed to permeate down to our dealer sales team when I purchased our first Beach. I recall that when we collected our new SE 180 4motion we received red carpet treatment whilst collecting our new Beach a few months later was much more a case of - Here are the keys. Its out there in the yard.
You say "A Beach at £55k or £65k makes no sense.
I may as well buy a well specced Caravelle and bung a aftermarket roof on and still have change in my pocket..."
You may be right but again it's not so clear cut. In this case, the price tag quoted was the list price for a factory order. Few people actually end up paying the list price. Never the less a well specced Beach is still über expensive even with a healthy discount.
The dilema facing many prospective Beach buyers is caused by lack of choice. There were plenty of basic Beaches but very few with a decent spec. So for them and I include myself, it was a case of pay up or loose out. In our case, we unsuccessfully looked for a Beach with something near our preferred spec, so it came down to replacing our previously well specced Beach with either a pretty basic one or ordering from the factory. The dealers had a number Beaches when we were looking but as usual they were nearly all virtually bog standard spec.
Undoubtedly the Ocean makes much more financial sense but that misses the point. For many people, the Ocean just isn't a viable alternative.
Converting a Caravelle can be done and maybe within that budget but you would end up with a conversion. A non forum friend of mine has just such a Caravelle conversion and quite frankly it isn't very nice. The roof conversion is difficult, complicated and the result is messy and untidy. The ceiling in a Caravelle has ventilation ducts, grills and numerous lighting fittings.
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All that would have to be moved and re-routed using non standard parts. Other aspects of the Caravelle would also need dealing with e.g lack of front swivel seats, parking heater, window blinds, Multiflex , VW Comfort mattress, picnic table, picnic chairs and their stowage, electric hook up, leisure battery etc etc. Then there's the depreciation angle too consider. So I doubt if it would be a realistic alternative.
Since there aren't really any real alternatives on the market our decision was that if we had too factory order for the first time in our lives, we might as well get exactly what we wanted. As it turns out it was a good move despite the price tag. Less than a month later VW stopped T6 Beach production and a little later they annouced that they weren't going to sell the Beach in the UK anymore. Since high spec beaches sell in a flash I have no doubt that we did the right thing. We will lose money of course as everyone does, but over the time we own it I believe it will prove to be a much sounder financial purchase than that of a conversion.
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