I’ve been sitting on these shots of this VW T4 “Doka” (Double cab) pickup that I found three blocks from my house. But given Jason Shafer’s eloquent exposition in defensive of the really big American double cab diesel pickup, it seems appropriate to post this one today as something of a counterpart. And quite the contrast it makes: it has FWD (!), a tiny little diesel engine making somewhere between 60 and 100 hp (or so), it can’t tow 50′ semi-trailers with 40 head of cattle in it, and it certainly doesn’t exude any machismo. Yet somehow Europeans contractors and farmers and utilities have managed to survive (barely) with such an under-sized, under-powered pathetic little truck.
And here’s the really odd thing: the reason this truck with Polish plates is in my neighborhood is because the house it’s in front of is owned by a guy who makes his living buying tired old trucks like this from Europe and selling them for healthy profits to Americans who eagerly snap them up. What’s up with that?
If you don’t understand why, I’ll give you the short answer: it’s cool. With a certain psychographic, of course. It wouldn’t be cool in central Missouri, I can assure you. Let’s just say that tribalism is the most powerful human drive along with sex and food. And our vehicles are the single most effective way of expressing our specific tribal allegiances, since they’re sitting out in front of our house even when we’re inside. Or when folks can’t see our clothes, hair, tats, piercings, shoes, or other tribal insignias.
Of course there are some who might be attracted to this truck simply because of its objective qualities, like the lack of a long hood, a compact, space-efficient body with plenty of interior space, and its flat bed with fold-down sides that makes for a very practical and multi-purpose tool. Someone like me, for instance. But then I’m a European by birth, so it’s probably my tribalism showing.
Oh, and that bed is rated for some 900 kg (depending on exact model) which is 1984 lbs, or almost exactly one ton. So let’s call this a VW T-350.
So even if it can’t tow 50′ semi trailers, these trucks are actually a bit more capable than one might expect, towing-wise. Towing capacity is 2000 – 2500k, or 4400 – 5500 lbs. Not too shabby for such a lightweight little thing. And yes, in Europe one really does see these hauling pretty good sized trailers.
And here’s a surprise: a fully independent rear suspension, for a ride over rough and bumpy roads that is on par with most passenger cars. The VW T4 (and up) once sold here as the Eurovan, has always been praised for its excellent suspension and car-like ride.
Oh, before I forget, a four-wheel drive Syncro version was available for those that really needed it. Or just wanted it. This picture represents effectively how those poor Europeans manage (barely) to get by with their little toy trucks.
As I mentioned, this particular truck was recently imported recently from Poland. There’s some paperwork still on the dash.
This was obviously a hard-working truck in its first career. I wonder who will be its new owner? An organic produce farm, a small contractor, or just someone wanting the anti-F350?
This particular truck has seating for six, no less, with a bench in front next to the driver’s bucket seat.
Here’s a better view.
And here’s the back seat. There’s three different upholstery fabrics represented here, so I’m guessing the importer swapped in some seats that were a bit less worn than the ones that were in the truck. Who knows how this T4 was used in Poland. Hard, undoubtedly.
I was tempted to raise the partially-open hood to see what was under it, but I summoned some unexpected restraint. Most likely it’s some variant of the VW 2.5 L diesel, although there were four cylinder versions too, especially the earlier vintages. The T4 was built from 1990 all the way to 2003. And it started out with engines as little as a 1.9 diesel four with all of 60 hp. But the typical 2.5 TDi was some 100 hp, although there were some higher output versions available too, but not likely installed in a work truck like this. With the 100 hp version, 0-60 came in 16.9 seconds. That’s not going to work for the rolling coal crowd. And a few others too.
Trucks have become very potent symbols. But let’s not read too much into this one just because it’s red.
It will sell for way more than it ought to to someone with VW fever.
Pretty neat, but wouldn’t this be more of an extended or club cab because rear doors are lacking?
The sole rear door is on the curb side. That’s the way it’s been on VW Dokas since the first one in the mid 50s.
It’s all part of that European practical minimalism. Three is enough, 95% of the time. And no doors on the rear would have been utter anathema in Europe.
My bet is on diesel/turbodiesel power. That looks like a fuel filler flap behind the driver’s door and it appears to be a bit dirtier than it would be for gasoline…or maybe not, as it looks like this truck has been rarely cleaned since it was new.
The bucket and bench combination is an interesting way to get seating for 6 in front.
Not much of a bet, when the odds are 100% that it’s a diesel. No one in their right mind would have special-ordered a gas version of this work truck in that part of the world.
The driver’s bucket and a 2 person bench is pretty common in larger cab over trucks so I don’t know if it is a nod to that or it is just the practicality of having that cheap fixed bench for the passengers and an adjustable seat for the driver.
If it had the longer front end, like the one in the Eurovan, it would mean it had one of VW’s toughest engines: the Audi 2.5 R5 TDi. The 140 hp as used in the Volvo S80 might be one of the best diesels ever…
These have been intriguing since I have first learned of them. To borrow an old colloquialism, there’s more than one way to skin a cat!
Wonder how long it was on a ship going from Poland to Tacoma WA. In Seattle there are quite a few dealers who import mainly Japanese cars to sell to those looking for something unique. I’ve driven by this place a couple of times and they do a fair number of Euro cars as well as the Japanese. http://sodo-moto.com/in-stock/ if you want to take it to the extremes of small trucks this doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal. http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1990-mitsubishi-minicab-kei-truck-4×4/ And at that price cheaper than a side by side utility vehicle for around the farm.
This however is the deal for a crew cab work truck of the most efficient nature. http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1988-nissan-atlas-2/ Already with the equipment to pump out flooded basements and crawl spaces and boxes for other tools.
Very cool. I would enjoy it, even though it’s slow, smelly, dangerous to drive and weird.
But I still am a carrier of VW fever, in spite of the many attempted vaccinations and cures of actually owning their old products.
Now I wonder what Europeans would buy and drive if their governments didn’t so carefully steer them in the “correct” pathways via legislation? If their fuel and tax structures allowed like it, as ours does, would they too be rolling in Ram Duallys and 5.0 Stangs?
Not an easy question to answer.
BTW, the current Mustang is a big seller in Europe these days. It’s really not that big in relative size anymore, as European cars and trucks have grown a lot too. CUVs are super hot there nowadays; think Nissan Rogue and such. hardly tiny cars.
American large cars once sold in large quantities in Europe, up until the 70s, more or less. They were held in high regard, until the Europeans started making large luxury cars too in the 70s. But the decreasing build quality and dynamic qualities of American cars made them increasingly unpopular, but some segments of the market has always gravitated to them.
In certain countries, large american cars had very sizable market shares: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands; all countries that either didn’t have their own car industry, or had an affinity to American cars.
Regarding big pickups: the huge difference is that mass market for them as personal transportation vehicles simply doesn’t largely exist in Europe. Most folks live in dense cities. And you won’t see many pickups in Manhattan either. Or some other American cities. They have their roots (obviously) in the countryside and farming. Urban/suburban Americans DID NOT buy pickups for personal use prior to the 60s or so (more or less). Before that time they were considered an unattractive machine suitable for dirty farmers or plumbers.
But as Americans moved out into semi-rural exurbs and such, and as values changed, and folks took up camping and boating and other activities, pickups became an increasingly popular vehicle. First mostly as a second vehicle; noe more commonly as a first vehicle. Also, Americans are DIYers; Europeans not so much so.
In Europe, cars were not seen so much as a necessity, but as a luxury. A large percentage of Europeans use mass transit (or bicycles) to get to work. They don’t commonly live on large acreages, and have as much use for a pickup.
If they need to haul, they more likely have an SUV with a hitch for trailers of various sorts. And they tow pretty large (but light) camping trailer with their cars.
I’m beating around the bush some, but the point is that it’s a mistake to think that Europeans drive what they drive strictly because of the fuel costs. It’s a factor, but then the new Ford F150 and Dodge Ram EcoDiesel can get up to 30mpg; high 20s in real world use. That’s affordable for quite a lot of Europeans.
Pickups, like this VW, are almost universally a work truck. To answer your question, would Europeans drive a big American pickup if fuel were cheap? The answer is they don’t drive pickups like this either, even though they’re quite efficient, and they could afford to. The big pickup as a personal vehicle is (so far) an American construct. But that’s not to say that it’s going to be limited to America. Personal pickup sales are on the upswing globally. America has a habit of exporting its fads, and it’s pretty safe to say that the pickup is/will be one of them. How widespread the phenomena gets is impossible to predict.
But fuel prices are far from the primary/sole reason why they’re not so already in Europe.
And don’t feel sorry for the poor Europeans with their high fuel prices. They get it back in many benefits, including well maintained and smooth highways. It’s not like the tax money goes into a hole in the ground. It gets spent.
On my last trip to Germany, January, I was surprised how many of the vehicles are large, and how many automatics there were. I’d say 80% of the cars I saw parked on the street were so equipped.
Of course, “large” is a relative term, but with the possible exception of France, Europeans don’t drive micro-cars much.
There used to be a big Chevy pickup in the inner city of Maastricht when I lived there. It took up more than half of the width of the narrow cobbled street is was always parked in. The bar owner who owned it must really be a fan of American trucks.
From a UK perspective, my guess is a huge drop in fuel prices would generally result in slightly bigger engines but not bigger cars across the board, although there will be pent-up demand from enthusiasts for all those V12 Jags you can buy for fifty pence. The bestseller is the Fiesta, and it might be usurped by the Focus. Anything bigger than that is hard to park.
A Ram dually would need 4 spaces and be very challenging to drive anywhere except the freeway. Understand – my sister and parents find a car the size of a Malibu intimidatingly large – as a tour guide I regularly heard screams and intakes of breath from American passengers on our highways because vehicles passed so close in the other direction. (Transit vs Sprinter)
US pickups are surprisingly common but BeWo’s example absolutely rings true – nightclub owners, football players – they are just bling here and never used for work. Perhaps that’s different on the continent where LHD might make them less of a toy. The American cars you see here are usually pickups, Escalades, and pony cars, and Ford has kicked the specialist importers in the gut by offering the Mustang in RHD. They are a common sight and I’m sure sales of those would double.
People would drive more, and drive longer journeys they currently undertake by train or plane, and used car prices would rise as more poor people would decide to buy cars. And then we’d all get sick of driving – the current high fuel tax system was introduced by the Conservatives in the early 90s not just to reduce pollution but because gridlock was predicted.
I have noticed the Brits taking an affinity to the new Ford Ranger, which is a good looking truck and surprisingly isn’t sold in North America, although they recently announced it will be next year. You also see a lot of Nissan Navaros, Mitsubishi Warriors, Volkswagen Amaroks and Toyota Hilux’s on the road, and most of those are used for lightweight grocery shopping duties.
Most of the working vehicles in Europe seem to be Ford Transit type vans, keeps the rain and the thieves away I guess.
The driver’s seat upholstery screams ’90s VW global. Brazilian VW’s of that vintage used some variation of it.
As to the front seat configuration, it’s typical European truck, driver bucket + bench for 2. T1 buses were already like that.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me, there was this so popular 1.6 diesel VW engine, which more or less had 2 cylinders added to become the 2.4 that Volvo installed in many cars. Is there any relation to this 5 cyl motor?
Same family of engines (EA827). Fours, fives and sixes. Gas and diesel. Indirect injection and direct injection. Turbo and naturally aspirated. Millions made for decades.
Sorry, but IMHO that thing will never be cool, and before you accuse me of being another unimaginative “mainstream” car guy I happen to be a big Ford Fox body fan… and I’m not talking about Mustangs, I’m into Fairmonts, Zephyrs, LTD’s etc.
“cool” is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t define it. Neither do you. But I do know that VW Dokas are very cool these days in certain parts of the country.
For that matter, VW transporter double cab pickups have been very cool for many decades. They were very cool when I was a teenager already. Ask anyone who hung around the beaches of California in the late 50s and 60s. It’s never stopped being cool since, which explains why folks are meeting the demand for them by importing them from Europe.
How difficult would it be to title and license this to drive in the USA?
And…would it be able to carry a slide in camper safely?
I’m asking for a…friend. Not me. Really.
Depends. If it’s more than 25 years old registering it is pretty straightforward.
“Safely” hauling anything depends on your comfort with old VWs of this style. There is zero crash protection, think of it like you’re riding a motorcycle. It’d probably haul a camper easily, but slowly and handle horribly.
There is zero crash protection
I beg to differ. These are fairly modern vehicles that had to conform to both European (Euro NCAP) and US crash/safety standards, as the van version was sold here. This is not exactly a 1950s split window T1. 🙂
I agree with Paul.
As Heath said, versions that are 25 years old or older are easy to title and register. But then I’ve seen folks in Oregon with newer ones too; I’m not sure how they do it.
Depends on the slide-in camper. They come in a vast array of sizes and weights. There have been all sorts of campers built on the T4 platform, in a wide array of sizes. If it has at least the 2.5 TDI, it will keep up with traffic reasonably well.
The high-top Westfalia was/is a popular camper.
The two vehicles I know with the 2.5 TDi, a heavier duty VW LT and a Volvo S80, move reasonably well. My brother’s 1999 Volvo S80 with 600.000 miles can still do 125 (±200 km/h) on a highway, and does an average fuel consumption of about 6 lts/100km
Plenty of these style pickups here the passengers fare just fine in a crash and in real traffic conditions they go just fine laden, Yes we have lots of overgrown US pickups about too they arent anny better when real work happens and as for towing big weights you require full air brakes to be allowed on the road once you hit commercial vehicle weights and a licence to match 0-60 times dont really mean a lot when your speed limit above 3,500kg tare is 90kmh or 56 mph, these smaller engined diesels manage ok.Love the dropsider type deck if it tips too thats the best way to configure a working truck, versatility is key.
Seems to be an awful lot of wasted vertical space. With FWD and IRS, the bed could be way down low, so you could step into it easily, or toss stuff in with minimal lifting. Instead, the bed remains where it was with the pancake rear engine.
This is because it’s not really a “pickup”, but a flatbed truck with sides, that can be folded down to make a totally flat and open surface. It’s used commercially; a pickup bed with rigid sides is practical for certain things, including loading pallets and such.
Is this low enough for you? It is a Razorback conversion, which replaces the whole rear chassis section with a hydraulically-lowerable tray.
Otherwise the height of the tray is dictated by the tyres and suspension travel, and the large space next to the muffler in the photo would probably where the spare would go.
Often an aftermarket tray like this will have a drawer put under it, to use the dead space.
Oops, hit the wrong button first…
These vehicles are very common in Europe, and often tow a trailer behind them. They are used as work vehicles pretty much exclusively, and do so exceptionally well.
In fact, I would say better than a domestic pickup “truck.” They are easy to load, carry six burly workers, have excellent rough road ability and are cheap to run.
Indeed, single or double cab flatbed trucks (like the one in the article) are never, ever, used here as a family vehicle.
Double cab panel vans, on the other hand, are often used as a combination of a family- and work vehicle. Regardless the brand.
Depends where in Europe. In the UK it is rare to see a van used in that way. Some business owners might use a double cab Japanese pickup as a semi work vehicle that doesn’t work very hard, but not a van.
Right. I must add that such double cab vans are often “dressed up”, like the one below. Metallic paint, a fully painted front (on a work van you see a big, grey plastic shield), nice rims, leather upholstery etc. Basically it’s a minivan with a separate cargo compartment.
Yet only in the segment of the VW Transporter, Ford Transit Custom and such. The big full-size vans (Crafter, Sprinter, Transit) are, well, simply too big for the family/work-mix.
With an exterior width of only 72″ and interior hip room of barely 60″, I can’t see them being all that comfortable for six “burly” (American-sized) workers.
I will echo that these are indeed “cool” … to me, and to many folks in California, as I see many Doka versions of earlier VW platforms. Well, many is relative, but they demand very high prices here. In general, as a longtime and current pickup owner, I find global pickup trends fascinating. I’ve travelled extensively in Taiwan and China, where conventional pickups are rare, but “can forward” dual cab tray backs are used by many tradesmen. But in Thailand, conventional pickups are everywhere. As they are in Ecuador, where I’m currently vacationing. At the same time, I’ve seen quite a few pickups (Hilux, Nissan, Ranger) in the rural north of England and in Switzerland. However, so far Quito, Ecuador is the only place I’ve seen many F150’s negotiating narrow, gridlocked streets in the 19th century old town.
Last time I was in Poland, five years ago, more than half of the vehicles at the border crossing with Ukraine were some variant of the T4.
Over at Atlantic Aviation by the Portland Airport (where the private jets land), you can find two of these T4’s with AWD and Alaska plates. They’re both Bright Orange, and I’d describe the condition as extremely well maintained. Don’t know the story on them or who owns them.
We owned a T4 Camper, and can vouch for the versatility of the design. As a US version, it had the 2.8 VR6 powertrain, which did surprisingly well, even with a trailer… as long as there weren’t any long, steep hills. then it was an exercise in patience.
When I was out this afternoon, coming the other direction was a double cab, drop side version off the last of the rear engine version and for it’s owner it certainly was all about being cool as it was heavily lowered with low profile tires and aftermarket wheels.
T4’s lack the little locomotive or solid-steel block Tonka appeal of the T3’s. The Australian (then) govt-owned telco bought thousands of them in the early ’90’s, and they quickly got a name for feather-like fragility. The engines lasted for ages, but everything else attached broke, and created luxury Euro car repair bills. It probably colours my perception of them. The turbo-diesels sure never seemed to want for sheer go, though, whether bulging with stuff or empty. Tradesmen have always been able to defy the laws of motion in their vehicles, especially so if between knock-off time and beer o’clock.
Despite not being enamoured, I’ll admit this is far more of my tribe. It’s completely adequate for the tasks it has, suspended cleverly for comfort and load, and the observation regarding the Euro-minimalism of the one door is spot-on about the design generally.
I read eons ago a lovely quote about racism to the effect that we are all inherently programmed that way, but the mark of how civilised you are or how civilised you want your society to be is how hard you work to overcome it. Same for tribes. A lesson that’s becoming very dusty in the fracturing of recent years.
Had to look more closely to realise these pictures were really taken in the US. Very common in Europe, particularly with Polish plates, but strictly commercial vehicles. Nobody uses these as private transportation, all are worked very hard and this one doesn’t seem to be an exception. It’s rather like a heavy tool and seeing it in this setting is jarring.
I wonder for how much it will be sold.
I’m sure that this one has a variant of 1.9 diesel uder the hood – other engine in Transporters in Poland are very rare. And I’m sure this one had a hard life – this was a “default” car for builders and other working crews. And as legend says that 1.9 VW ist indestructable they rarely are under much care. So this one probably is well worn off.