Category Archives: travels

Travel Vehicle Try #2

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Time is flying by and I’m tired and should go to sleep right now. But at least I can post some pictures. I bought it on Sunday and fetched it on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday I had a thorough look at it, it seems not too bad but it certainly has it’s issues. I’ll write more about it later this week.

It’s a Mercedes Benz Model 602 aka T1 aka “Bremer Transporter” (lorry produced in bremen/germany). It’s quite a late model made in 1993 and has the strongest diesel engine available (OM602 2,9L 5cyl, 95hp). About 970000 of them were produced by Mercedes up to 1995 and they are still manufactured as license builds in India.

The interior is self made by the first owner and it seems that he knew what he was doing most of the time.

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Somewhere in northern germany

 

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The black stripe on the bottom isn’t original, it’s been repainted due to corrosion

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The interior is alright but i think i have to repaint the panels

 

Travel vehicle buy try #1 failed…

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"Muckelchen" on the first pit stop

“Muckelchen” on the first pit stop

Well. After not finding a decent van I thought about just buy anything which comes for a decent price and then sell it again if I don’t like it. Then I saw the following combination on the web: VW Taro (badge engineering at it’s finest, it is a Toyota Hilux which was put together in Hannover, Germany by VW). On Top of it a Tischer Cabin originally for a VW Caddy (small pickup on the golf I chassis). To cut a long story short: The state was not exactly as mint as advertised. There were some leak issues which were hidden under a second wall. Also the Hilux is not quite comfortable for a guy with almost 1,90m of height. And I realized that the cabin is to small and that I want a bathroom on board. And a motorcycle. And a bicycle. And other stuff. So I have to get a decent sized van.

Today I sold the cabin for a decent price to a guy from the VW Caddy forum. If the Hilux is hitting the price I expect I will make a small profit with this failed buy. So all in all this buy wasn’t a total fail after all since I learned a lot about my expectations on a travel vehicle, (hopefully) didn’t loose money and got to visit a good friend who is living nearby the place where I bought the car. So it feels almost like a win while it is technically a fail (on acquiring a travel vehicle).

The Plan

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“I love it when a plan comes together” — (Hannibal Smith)

Alright, i don’t like it here. We established that fact earlier. But what to do about it? The obvious choice would be to get drunk every evening and watch TV. Pretty common decision in Germany because booze is really cheap and its almost impossible to watch TV sober. I tried that for some time but it didn’t work for me. The little man in my head who always says stuff like “You can do so much better! Such potential! Use it! Don’t put it to waste” doesn’t get drunk easily and when I get him wasted he is getting more confident and creative with his ideas. So sitting drunk in front of the telly is a possibility to kill time but it makes me feel really unhappy. And craving for Anditainment…

Emigration would be another solution but where to? I love travelling and have done quite a bit so far but even with the possibility to choose freely there’s no place which really drags me to go there.

The logical choice which is left is to do a scouting trip. Just put your life on a truck and start roaming around until you feel the urge to stay. As a friend of iterative work organization models I don’t want to give up everything at home. It’s not that bad 🙂 So the Plan is to do trips around Europe but to return to Germany whenever I feel like it and to travel there as well. And to meet nice people. To sum it up:

  • Acquire funds & free time to survive roughly half a year with as little (payed) work as possible (almost done)
  • Acquire a decent vehicle for long distance travel around Europe (working on it)
  • Transform vehicle into decent shape, add some luxury as well as an environment to do some prototyping of technical stuff (todo)
  • Use social networks to find interesting people in western europe (todo)
  • Lay out a route which connects these interesting people and some sight seeing (todo)
  • Start travelling (todo) and be spontaneous (work in progress)

Stay tuned, something around 27 working days left…