Fancy having a go at making a funky futuristic looking VW-based van that expands into a trailer tent? Well, you can now buy detailed plans telling you how to build it yourself, just in time for the summer holidays…

The Phoenix first featured in Popular Mechanics magazine and also made a star appearance in the movie, Total Recall (1990). And hell, it looks so damned whacky you’d become quite a celebrity yourself if you turned up at a campsite or Dub show in one!

It’s based on a VW bus chassis and features nitrogen assisted gullwing doors giving access to the cab which houses two bucket seats and a central aisle to allow you to walk through to the rear which has two bench seats along each side. Each bench, apparently, has a lift up top providing a handy hiding space for food, clothes and other tat as deemed necessary.

Apart from looking like nothing else on the planet, the Phoenix’s other party trick is that it can then be expanded like a trailer tent into a large bedroom with stand-up height in the centre of a six-footer. Overall, the unit measures 12ft wide across the bed area when fully extended, the cushions on the bench seats acting as a built-in mattress.

Appliances are positioned across the rear, above the engine cover, with a sink on the right, a mirror faced ice box in the centre and a two-burner propane stove on the left. The configuration also allows space for a nine gallon plastic water tank under the ice box.

Plans for the Phoenix were originally introduced under the Popular Mechanics brand, but hip magazine Hot VWs also ran a story about it on its cover in 1980. Following a facelift it was renamed the Renegade which had slightly different side windows and the addition of foam filled front and rear bumpers. The plans for the original version, however, are currently being published by an outfit called Robert Q Riley in – you’ve got it – Phoenix, Arizona.

They’re advertised at $75, which includes 11 large drawings and a photo-illustrated book. Not bad value, we’d say and we’d love to know if anyone’s made one up here in the UK. Surely it can’t be that difficult, although we suspect you’d need to be a bit of a glassfibre guru to create all those madcap ’80s looking square panels.

Come on someone, get the plans, get busy and get it out there! You know you want to…

Ian

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage