The Volkswagen Bus is a component of an elite group of vehicles which are immediately recognizable to almost anyone on Earth. Vehicles like the Bus and the Beetle, and non-VWs like the Ford Mustang, transcend the sphere of automobile enthusiasts and have found homes within the hearts and minds of all various kinds of people. Volkswagen’s long-awaited revival of its iconic blunt-nosed bread box on wheels, the fully electric ID Buzz, excites normies and automobile nerds alike, but Volkswagen has the prospect to take things one step further and revive the rugged, all-terrain Syncro. The ID Buzz is already offered with all-wheel drive, so why not lift it a bit and offer one other flavor of nostalgia with an ID Buzz Syncro? Or Zyncro?
Volkswagen brought the primary four-wheel-drive Vanagon Syncros to the U.S. in 1986. They were never intended to be go-anywhere rock-hopping mountain goats or desert-dominating Dakar stars, but they offered buyers increased traction for bad weather and an optional locking rear differential for the really difficult stuff. Despite not being designed for intense off-roading, the Vanagon Syncro set a record in 1985 for driving across the globe, covering 27,000 miles in 131 days and hitting five different continents.
While the Vanagon of the Nineteen Eighties and ‘90s didn’t quite rise to popular culture fame like the unique Volkswagen Bus, it remains to be one among my favorite cars ever. In actual fact, one among the primary questions I get once I tell people what I do for work is “what’s your dream automobile?” People expect me to say something like a Bugatti Chiron or a Bentley Continental GT, but I even have much, much weirder tastes than that. My dream automobile is an early ‘90s Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia with a Porsche or Subaru motor swapped in to present it some guts.
I’m not normally a fan of automakers lifting their cars and adding black plastic trim to create an off-road-focused spec of their cars, however the Buzz is begging for a Syncro revival. Within the era of crossover-crazed consumers and automobile firms that cater to them with specialized Wilderness, Rock Creek, Raptor, and AT4 trims, it’s a no brainer in my eyes. Kia recently released a lifted Adventure Van concept that was pretty rad, too. I actually imagine that Volkswagen can capitalize on the ID Buzz’s nostalgia and land an actual sales hit with an ID Buzz Syncro.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
