I landed in Munich a few days ago to celebrate perhaps the greatest gift I’ve received as a car writer: Friendships made with readers — specifically, one made with Andreas, a Romanian-German with a heart of gold and an Autobianchi of not-too-much rust.
I landed on Friday and attended his 12-hour wedding the following day. It was in an incredible car museum; here’s a small section of it:
There was a lot of cake:
Why was there so much cake? Because as I show in this video below, Jose, the bride, is a baking legend:
There was also dancing:
And there was Romanian moonshine (Visinata):
The wedding was beautiful. The vows, which I’ll admit made me spring a bit of a headlight-fluid leak, included much discussion of Andreas’s love of cars, and of the bride and groom’s upcoming road trip to the U.S. (which I will be third-wheeling). Plus, many of the decorations on the tables were car-related. It was epic. I mention this primarily because the vehicle I took to the wedding was none other than Project Krassler, my 260,000 miles diesel, manual Chrysler Voyager. A bit of backstory: Back in 2020, after Andreas bought the van on my behalf, he and I —along with some of his friends — replaced almost all the major wear components in the suspension and steering, we slapped on some new tires, fixed the shifter linkage, changed all the fluids, swapped out some bad CV joints, and on and on. Here’s a look at all that hard work:
After a number of attempts, I got the van through Germany’s grueling vehicle inspection, TÜV:
At that point, I hit the road, first to Belgium, since almost every surrounding country was closed due to COVID restrictions:
Then I headed to Sweden, where I saw the supercar-maker Koenigsegg’s headquarters:
In the summer of 2021, I traveled to an gorgeus wedding in Istanbul, and then to a honeymoon in Cappadocia, where I picked up a hitchhiker. It was hell, but also awesome:
In the 10,000 miles I put on the $600 van after reviving it from the dead, the only issues I’ve had are with headlight and taillight bulbs. There was a tiny leak from a CV boot, but I just tightened the clamp, and all was good. Now I’m back home in early 2023 — 2.5 years since wrenching this $600 beast back onto the road — and how does the ol’ van run these days? Like an absolute dream:
A post shared by The Autopian (@theautopian) A bit of an aside: On my way to the van after the wedding, I spotted this rare American Jeep ZJ:
A post shared by The Autopian (@theautopian) Anyway, now to the point of this article: What should I do with this van if my parents, who are now storing the machine, decide to move back stateside? My options include: 1. Store the van here, ask a friend to graciously register it as an antique so I can drive it when I visit 2. Sell it or 3. Import it to the U.S. My concern with number two is that Europe is cracking down hard on diesel vehicles, and I fear that, if I sold it, it wouldn’t be long before it was on its way to the junkyard. As a rust-free highway cruiser in excellent mechanical shape, I feel it deserves better. I’d love to import it, but California likely won’t let me, even if it’s 25 years old. And the storage option? Well, that could work, but when does it end? Perhaps an overlanding trip to Africa could be the goal. These are tough decisions. What do you think? Slap a pair of German H plates on it if you can (however, you need to wait 2 more years for that, your antique must be at least 30y old). Regarding diesel, at least in Germany H-registered cars are extempt from requirements regarding emissions and low emission zones. I doubt that it will change fast, too many historic Diesel vehicles on German roads. I had a diesel jeep liberty that really pissed them off for a good while as it puffed smoke rings when you really stomped on it. One guy was so insensed that he called the emissions people at least weekly on me for a while so after the third time re-testing the jeep they told him it was an abuse of emergency services and he’d go to jail if he called again. Not sure how they made the logic jump to calling themselves emergency services but thats what the lady in their office told me. Here’s what you can and should do: 1) Import it to the east coast. 2) Register and insure it here in Michigan (I have this planned out too, but I’ll save that discussion for your going away party). 3) Take the long way from NY to CA, via zig-zagging north and south through the country via all secondary roads, while camping out of the van. This while making sure that you get plenty of photos as stories along the way. Think of it as “The Summer of David”. Imagine writing van life stories while you also mod the mini over time to become the ultimate west coast mini camper van. I really wanted a friend’s JDM diesel Pajero but realized after doing research that it was a risky move that I might not get tags for or upon an audit loose those tags. It has a Diesel VIN number, and since it’s pre ’98 it wont need to have California SMOG testing done. This would be a huge win to either you, or any big nerd in California that wants to do a fun swap to a caravan. Entirely worth it, especially if you can get the process done for $3000-3500, you’d be $4000 into a diesel 5 speed Caravan. Something absolutely unobtainable in the US. You could list it and make your money back on BaT or some other nerd car bidding website. Totally worth it. This will increase his odds of having at least one running vehicle at any given moment. You remember that strange law, which allows some cars to be registered as “light duty” vehicles? It’s often (ab)used to save on taxes, but in this case we could use it to keep your Voyager on the road. You see, most light duty vehicles are diesels, even today. It´s simply more challinging to replace them with “green” alternatives comparerd to normal cars. As such it will take much longer for the gouvernement to ban them, giving you plenty of diesel powered EU traveling oppertunities. Btw, this is not an Africa vehicle and you know it! It would do fine on the main roads, but that’s not where you want to be my friend ;). -Mike
