Rarely does a day go by when we’re not asked why the Volkswagen California has never been made available for the US market, and so, in response to these questions we decided to investigate…

Volkswagen hasn’t sold campervans in the States since the Touareg SUV replaced the Camper in 2003. Since then, an industry has grown around buying, selling, restoring and loving the older vans, while in the meantime Europeans get to enjoy the newer vehicles.

Volkswagen’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, has previously stated that he looks to fill niches in the US market; but so far, the decision makers in Wolfsburg have been unconvinced that Americans will buy enough California campers to justify the cost of certifying and importing them.

This is also partly because of the high price. For example, in the UK, a new California starts at over £42,000, which at current exchange rates is over $65,000, thus pricing itself out of a competitive market.

While earlier vans of the ’60s and ’70s, the T3 Vanagon and the T4 Eurovan were all successful to varying degrees it appears that the growing fashion for sports utility vehicles and people carriers significantly influenced consumer demand.

In spite of VW positioning the Eurovan in the States as a family-oriented people carrier with more versatility and space than ‘similar’ American SUVs, SUVs won the battle, and VW increasingly found itself unable to carve out a niche of sufficient volume.