Volkswagen T1 Camper Vanproduct_label_list_price_accessibility 300 Reviews1234516144521FIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISCarsCreatorVehiclesRoad trips will never be the same again with the iconic 1962 Volkswagen T1 Camper VanItem10220VIP PointsAges16+Pieces1334 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van Reviews - page 2As soon as I saw the brand-new Lego Volkswagen T1 Camper Van, I knew I had to have it. It looked very fun to put together as well as full of quirky detail and different from many of the other Lego sets. Since I love putting things together following a set of instructions, big Lego sets are perfect for me. You’ll never hear, “Oh no, you mean I have to put it together?” in this house.This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. to report an issue. Lego put out a video giving a tour of all of its features, including information on creating such a product from scratch. The designer even showed where he left his personal touch on the interior.
From the Lego press release: “The red LEGO VW Camper Van is a loving recreation of a T1 Camper from 1962, also known as the ‘Combi’ or ‘the hippie van’. It includes features such as the ‘V’ shape three-way colour split at the front, rounded roof and window frames, opening ‘splittie’ safari front window, opening doors, and of course, the instantly recognisable pop-up roof.” Officially connected with Volkswagen, the Lego Volkswagen T1 Camper Van evokes an era gone by, when people would just toss a bag into their VW and head across the country. Some of my favorite features of the set are the pop top, the movable doors and windows, and the detailed vintage interior. The interior includes awesome details such as a lava lamp, a plant, and a T-shirt that says “Make Lego models, not war.” The seats also fold down to make beds, though everything is a little bit too big for minifigs to use. But once the set is built, it has plenty of functionality for kid play time as well, if you can part with it and want to risk lost pieces (I can’t and don’t).
This set was much more involved than most other Lego sets I have put together. Also unlike the sets that I am usually drawn toward, this one had many more kinds of pieces, making any kind of assembly line impossible but keeping things fresh and interesting all the way through construction. Put together with an awesome friend of mine plus my two kids, the 1,332 pieces probably took us about eight hours to assemble, though that is just an estimate. (Though something tells me it might have gone faster without the kids.) We did build it in just two sessions, though. The first was about two hours, the second about six. Fortunately, by the time we were so tired that our eyes were starting to cross, there were so few pieces left that it didn’t matter. Lego kits are extremely fun and challenging to assemble, and this model was no different. While pieces of similar size are usually packaged together in the same bag, in general the pieces are probably only sorted by some design of the manufacturing process.
Itty bitty pieces are usually together, and larger ones are usually together. But often similar pieces are in different bags, and pieces needed for steps are scattered around. I’m sure this is to keep costs down, but searching for just the right piece isn’t the most fun part of the building process. If they bundled pieces required for the first 1/4 of the build together, and the next 1/4 of the build together, and so forth, that would be a real boon. (A Lego kit my daughter got for her birthday was bagged and numbered in just that way.) The Lego Volkswagen T1 Camper Van is now available for $119.99. It is recommended for ages 16 and up, but we found that much younger kids do just fine if they build it as part of a group, as we did. Buy it, build it, and satisfy your wanderlust without leaving home. Buy it for anyone on your holiday gift list who loves to put things together and has a soft spot in their heart for the era of the VW minibus. Note: I received a copy of the Lego Volkswagen T1 Camper Van for review purposes.
I always loved camping. Toting around a backpack and living in a tent in the middle of a forest or near a lake comes naturally to me. But I like the more luxurious way of camping in a travel-trailer or motor-home as well. In fact, I go down to the Tampa Florida RV show almost every year to check out the latest motor-homes, travel-trailers, and camper-vans. I love the lifestyle, and in fact at some point we lived full time in one of those silver bullet trailers from the 1970s up in the mountains of the Arizona-New Mexico border. And of course I naturally collect LEGO campers. LEGO has been releasing sets with campers as far back as the 1970s. The oldest set I could find is the #623 LEGO White Car & Camper from 1970. It is a very simple camper that looks more like a pop-up trailer. The #379 LEGO Car & Caravan (pictured above) from 1972 appears much more realistic, with a red vehicle pulling a nice size travel-trailer. A van-conversion was also introduced in 1989 in the #6388 LEGO Holiday Home with Campervan. S
imilar travel-trailer and camper-van sets were produced through the 1980s and 1990s (see my Brickset LEGO Travel-Trailers & Camper-Vans bricklist here). I particularly like the LEGO Fabuland campers as they are very cute – like the #3635 LEGO Fabuland Bonnie Bunny’s Camper from 1981, pictured below. Then there is a big gap, and we don’t see minifigs going on holidays in a camper until 2009. The #7639 LEGO City Camper set was a huge hit, and it brought back the camping lifestyle to LEGO City, and even to LEGO Friends. So far we got three modern camper-vans; the aforementioned #7639 LEGO City Camper from 2009, the #3184 LEGO Friends Adventure Camper from 2012, and the #60057 LEGO City Camper Van from 2014. All three are excellent sets with nice shaping on the outside and reasonably detailed interiors (see below). And we also got three modern travel-trailers: the #4435 LEGO City Car & Caravan from 2012, the #41034 LEGO Friends Summer Caravan from 2014, and the #60117 LEGO City Van & Caravan from 2016. A
ll three of these have really nice interiors as well, plus a car to pull them. If your minifigures like to travel in luxury, they can also check out the #41106 LEGO Friends Pop Star Tour Bus released in 2015. This is more of a glamorous bus-conversion used by pop-stars, sports teams, and politicians on campaign tours, but if your minifigs want the best, it is a great option. The four LEGO City sets I mentioned above are totally worth to collect. They are realistic enough to add to any LEGO City layout, or you can even make an RV park with them! The LEGO Friends campers are a bit bold in color, however I think the #41034 LEGO Friends Summer Caravan has a particularly nice shape – resembling the old roundish trailers I remember seeing in Arizona. But the best is yet to come… The #31052 LEGO Creator Vacation Getaways scheduled to be available this summer, is going to be the most detailed and realistic looking minifigure size camper-van ever released by LEGO. It is larger and even more realistic than the campers in the LEGO City line, with a full interior and detailed exterior. I