14 November/December 2020TIMMCMANUSCars &
(^4) Trucks
// BY CHRIS DIXON //
The Beloved
Volkswagen
Vanagon’s True
Successor Is a
Pop-Top Benz
turned the Vanagon into a camper, the result was
utilitarian art, comfortably seating and sleeping
four. Its 1992 successor, the Eurovan, was fast and
safe, but lacked the Vanagon’s quirky mojo. North
American sales were dismal (VW sold roughly
28,000 Eurovans versus 130,000 Vanagons). V W
retired the Eurovan in 2003, leaving the United
States without a factory-built camper for 17 years.
The Eurovan’s disappointing sales and the high
cost of bringing over a European camper conspired
to keep V W’s ironically named “California” vans
out of North American dealers. But at last, we have
the spiritual successor to Volkswagen’s iconic bus-
ses: the Mercedes Metris Getaway. The 16.8-footer
is identical in scale to the VW vans blanketing
European roads. It’s garage-able and powerful. And
the five-seat, two-bed rig (which went on sale this
fall for around $70,000) isn’t only a functional fam-
ily hauler. It’s a fun-as-hell little RV.
The timing couldn’t be better. In 2020, van and
RV camping have exploded in the wake of Covid-
19—not to mention the ever-growing popularity of
#vanlife—as people seek safe, self-contained means
B
ACK IN 1951, A BRITISH MILITARY
officer asked engineers at Westfalia,
a storied German coach and trailer
maker, to turn his Volkswagen bus into a
camper. Westfalia installed a rear sofa,
cabinets, and hand-sewn curtains to cre-
ate a charming, self-contained rig they
called a “camping box.” The little wünderbus was
neither powerful nor reliable, but it was simple to
work on, and would make Westfalia a household
name. A couple of decades and generations of West-
falia-modded camper vans later, V W debuted the
Vanagon. It possessed a sharp, boxy, Millennium
Falcon-esque aesthetic all its own. When WestfaliaThe fully deployed
and outfitted
Metris Getaway,
during the
author’s two-
week testing trip.