Mystery Creek visitors can view a VW project from the past that’s a year ahead of time.

HAD timing worked out, it would have been old alongside new in the Waikato today - that is, Volkswagen’s electric ID.Buzz, a modern reinterpretation of the 1960s Volkswagen Kombi, standing next to an original example, converted to battery drive.

However, with the Buzz delayed until 2024, the franchisee, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, here has nonetheless decided to go ahead with displaying ‘Kev’ on its own.

Visitors to the national fields at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton, will be able to look over distributor’s project car, an original 1966 edition it has converted to electric drive as part of a full restoration to driving standard with the finishing touch of a period flower power look.

They might also have success in gleaning from the distributor technical information about the technical detail of the vehicle, whose name is an acronym for Kombi Electric Vehicle (though the local outfit’s boss is Kevin Richards).

The battery and motor type, the range, performance and, not least, the price of this conversion  of a vehicle first used by the Dunedin Health Board is not known.

Media information sent out by the brand’s public relations partner unfortunately steers clears of any such information.

Surprisingly, so does an online Greenprint VW Commercials has created, showing some of the steps taken toward rebirthing the vehicle, and intended to be a guide to those thinking about undertaking their own conversion.

While ‘Kev’ has most direct DNA with the Buzz, whose local release should have occurred three months ago only to be derailed by the factory deciding other markets were more important, it also relates to the ID. series of VW electric cars, the ID.4 and ID.5, which are being released in September.

A spokesman for the project, Max van den Bergen, says Kombi owners are super passionate about their vehicles.

“When almost half (47 percent) of Kiwis are likely considering and (sic) EV for their next vehicle, we’re thrilled to offer a range of electric and PHEV vehicles along with one that’s slightly more unexpected.”

Not having ID.Buzz this year has been a blow to VW Commercials; it saw the retro reborn interpretation of the famed T1 (aka the Bus, Bulli, Transporter and Microbus) as being a strong powerful head-turning talisman to raise interest in the whole ID electric car programme.

The Buzz is  now scheduled to arrive here in the second half of 2024. The delay means that, in addition to taking the standard wheelbase model as a commercial van – ‘transporter’ in VW-speak called Buzz Cargo - as well as a five-seater passenger version, the distributor will also access a long wheelbase type, also single motor but swapping from 150kW/310Nm to  210kW/550Nm, with six to seven seats. 

A dual motor, high performance GTX said to be as quick as a VW Golf GTI is also expected to come before end of next year.