Mate, respectfully you sound like one of the 300 emails a week I used to get from folk almost frantic to get a VW during the pandemic, so much so its scary.
I Used to have people offer me their kidneys.....well....not literally but you get the point.
25 years experience working on the base vehicles and building campers has lead me to one conclusion. Why?
I dont mean to dampen your spirit, hey its your money, your life but there's some things that You should hear (you won't listen as you're fixated...I get that) but im trying to help you.
Ask many of the many folks on this forum who bought a van during the pandemic for 20, 30, 40k and realized its sat on the drive doing nothing and they realise they're never going to get back the full cost when they sell it because in the first place the dealer slapped 5-10k ontop of what its actually worth taking advantage of the feeding frenzy and autotrader is now saturated with hundreds of cheap high spec vans that were bought in the frenzy and are now smeared in buyers remorse and the owners can't sell them.
You'll always pay too much for a VW. ALWAYS unless that seller is literally desperate.
Youve got to also consider, can you afford to run it?
Fuel will cost you way more than a car, Considerably more, insurance will be ridiculous, and keeping it on the road will cost you an arm and a leg unless you're mechanically minded and prepared to do it yourself.
case and point, since October 2023, I've spend £2300 on just parts for 5 different jobs on my 2016 T6 Highline....its my daily driver as well as a dayvan/camper conversion...they aren't fancy aesthetic jobs...it was cambelt, gearbox, suspension etc.....I did the work myself. So imagine what it would have cost at the dealer or a garage charging £25-55 an hour.
This forum is full of people who respectfully would admit themselves they have zero mechanical knowledge lamenting the 2k they just paid VW to do a job that an amature mechanic did for £250 in parts.
There's more to owning a VW bus than just taking photos of it before and after you've washed it with that gimmicky snow foam nonsense.
I know, I know..... buzz Killington over here ruining your fun and all that, but don't buy into the 'Cult' of VW... you know.
Here's a good example of what I mean. My friend bought an old Birmingham city council minibus for £1000 about 10 years ago, an LDV convoy i think.
Funny looking, pug nosed high top minibus.
The fun hes had in that minibus doing it up, making it into a camper, spraypainting the outside like a hippy bus is beyond anything I've ever experienced in a VW.
Its HUGE inside, you can stand up, walk about, theres LOADS of light because of the big windows, his wife went hippy crazy on the furnishings.
When we go camping together I spend 99% of my time seeing how much more fun hes having in his Jesus bus...people love it too, always asking if they can have a look in it, smiling and enjoying it.
I offered him an ex AA van, VW T6 that needed a bit of work doing for 16k 2 years ago. Nice van... he turned it down and bought a new sofa, a posh mattress for his bed at home, took the family to Florida and spent about 3k on refurbishing his Jesus bus instead.
The spirit of camping isn't about VW....thats a lie modern people started based on romaticising classic campers and the hippy lifestyle. The spirit of camping is About you, it comes from within.
You ask anyone here in this forum and I bet you would be surprised at the amount of people who wish they hadn't spent that money.