This is pretty much a standard father-son driving lesson.
‘Your goal here is to shift from first to second, smoothly,’ Steve Schwenk says as he instructs his son Sam, who is in the driver’s seat. ‘Just focus on making that shift smoothly and without losing motion.’
One big difference, however, is that this lesson on driving a manual transmission is taking place on the rocky, boulder-strewn off-roads of the Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area. Another peculiarity is that it’s being conducted in a Volkswagen van that is more than 20 years old.
‘A little more gas … a lot more gas!’ Schwenk coaches excitedly as Sam muscles over the terrain. ‘Well done.’
Schwenk beams like a freshly licensed teenager himself. He’s proud of both his son and his Volkswagen.
‘The thing about this van is it is so well thought out, you see,’ Schwenk had explained back at camp. ‘They put engineering before all the other bullshit — nothing else comes close.’
Schwenk is not alone in his love for four-wheel drive Volkswagon vans. He is part of an exclusive group that call themselves Syncronauts. Over a recent May weekend, the rare Volkswagon collectors gathered in the hills outside Hollister, Calif., for the twelfth annual Syncro de Mayo, a festival that celebrates a quirky beast of a van.
Between 1985 and 1992, Volkswagen equipped a limited number of their standard-issue Vanagons with a four-wheel-drive system. The German-engineered vehicles were available in both passenger vans and campers, as well as single- and double-cab pickups. Enthusiasts insist Syncros can hold their own against the likes of Jeeps and Land Rovers.
‘There are many people who would say this is the finest conveyer ever made by man,’ says Joseph Ernest, a Californian from Sri Lanka.
Ernest is sporting a brimmed leather hat with a feather in the band and cooks up a tasty lamb shish kebab. His Syncro is a 1989 Westfalia camper.
‘So much of this is about the people,’ Ernest says, looking out over the campground.
For the weekend, ‘the people’ — or, volks, if you will — have set up camp in the Hollister Hills SVRA. They admire one another’s Volkswagens before trying their best to launch their vehicles into outer space.
A bewildered looking man in a shiny black four-door Chevy truck pulls into the campground and inquires about the collection of old Volkswagens.
‘It’s just a gathering where people go up in the hills and see what they can do,’ explains a man wearing a San Francisco Giants hat.
By the second morning of the Syncro de Mayo event, the vans have yet to reveal anything beyond the rumblings of a garden-variety Vanagon. Most lounge lazily like cows in the shade along the edge of the campground.
The Syncronauts are also taking a slow morning. The ones that are awake lean back in lawn chairs, staring into the sun as it crests over the hills and dances across their Volkswagens. Over at Schwenk’s van — a 1991 camper — there’s coffee and an early morning conversation brewing about the differences between stock Syncros and ones that have undergone various conversions. In addition to generally beefing up the vehicles, it has become common to do a diesel conversion, or install a Subaru engine.
‘I’m fine with the underpowered engine,’ Schwenk says. ‘I enjoy it, actually.’
Twelve years ago — in 2000 — Schwenk organized the first Syncro de Mayo. Having owned his Volkswagen a few years at that point — and repeatedly ‘destroying the suspension in Death Valley’ — he wanted a chance to meet people who shared his passion for the refrigerator-shaped tank. He was also hungry to test out some springs he had fabricated.
The event now draws dozens of Syncros. It’s a cross between a car show, off-road rally, campout, and family reunion.
Shortly after the coffee has kicked in, drivers begin cranking up their Syncros and heading for the trails. A couple of them playfully drive up and down a large mound of loose rocks at the foot of the hills. Before long, a camper has become stuck precariously on the mound, threatening to roll onto its side.
The driver turns off the engine. He gets out and nervously surveys the scene. He looks like a man about to watch an unfathomable sum of money roll down a pile of gravel.
‘A lot of people who have these vans are scared to take them off-road because they are such rare and precious things,’ Ernest explains.
They are also expensive. While all Syncros are more than two decades old at this point, they still run somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Some — sporting an endless array of bells and whistles — can cost much more.
It takes about an hour, but the near roll is eventually righted with the aid of two other Syncros and a collection of tow straps. With a crisis averted, the herd rumbles up the trails and disappears into the hills.
Although still a rare sight, Syncros have gained some popularity in recent years. Appreciated globally — Schwenk uses Google Translator to communicate with enthusiasts in Japan — California is said to now have the most plentiful and rust-free stock of the vehicles.
‘Jimmy Buffett has one now. Tom Hanks has one. There’s one in a beer commercial in the Northwest,’ Schwenk says. ‘They’ve become regarded as a cult vehicle.’
Most of the Syncronauts gathered outside Hollister seem to relish their Syncros because they like to venture off the beaten path. And they prefer to do so in comfort.
‘It’s usually lousy weather when I get to go camping,’ says Jeb Pronto, who lives in the foothills of the Sierras.
Pronto uses his Syncro to get him into the woods, as well through the snow in the winter. But he also pampers the beast.
‘I try not to use it all the time because I know I wouldn’t be able to get another one,’ he says.
Of course, in addition to being a practical vehicle for adverse conditions, the Syncros are also fun to drive into the ground and launch into the air. That’s what the Syncronauts do on Saturday.
Up in the hills, a course has been laid out in a large rocky pit. Spectators have gathered on the outcroppings along the edge. They wait as the number of Syncros slowly grows.
One by one, the Volkswagen’s take to the course. Yelps of approval are offered up when wheels leave the ground. Gasps echo in the pit when a driver rams his front end bluntly into a ditch.
The dust is still settling after the competition when the the Syncros and Syncronauts saunter back down the trails to the campground. Tonight they feast on beer and barbecue. Tomorrow, another chance to fly a Volkswagen.
