We present the Bluestar! It's a 1990 VW T3 multivan converted to a camper by Reimo in Germany. It was imported to UK in 2005 by a previous owner. We bought it sort of by accident. Our initial plan was to travel around Europe by car and camp in a tent. At the time our neighbour was a VW specialist and kept on littering our street with T3's until we started to like them! The strategy worked and on 4th Feb 2013 we bought one from him.
Why Bluestar? Bluestar is the special edition name that VW gave it (they also made Redstars and Whitestars). Not very original but this is what we usually call her. Sometimes shortened to 'star' or 'starship' because Andrew is a massive nerd and thinks he's Jean-Luc Picard.
She started her life as a fairly high spec multivan and comes with some nice goodies such as power steering, central locking and big electric mirrors. At the back it features a 1.6 Turbo Diesel (JX) power plant able to propel her forward to a respectable 85Mph (in favourable wind). However, in reality, a comfortable cruising speed is around 65Mph. Does it feature a 5th gear? I hear you cry. Yes it does! 5th gear, alloy wheels and all the blue glittery paint you could throw at it. So, all in all, for a T3, she’s quite a well pimped ride.
In between trips Andrew has been slowly restoring her and by now had most components in pieces at one time or another. In 2017 he rebuild the engine and in 2018 she got a shiny new paint job. There's always something new to thinker with on the van and it's a task that never really ends.
This is what she looked like the day we bought her:
And more recently:
The interrior was also renovated but kept roughly in the original style: