My first car was a VW Bora, and I've spent pretty much my entire life working on nothing but Volkswagen stuff.

By now, that Bora has a half-finished AWD conversion and an engine from an Audi TT RS.

So yeah… things escalated a little.

That's probably why it's genuinely sad to see Volkswagen going through such a difficult period right now. Whatever happens, I really hope they keep moving forward.

You guys make some seriously awesome stuff.

And somehow, that brings me back to the VW T3.

We recently made a new batch of fender flares for the T3, and we'd obviously love to sell a few of them.

We make them from 3 mm ABS, and if you've ever had to cut and trim plastic to fit an old VW properly, you already know how quickly a simple job can turn into an argument with yourself.

But while working on these, I went down a completely different rabbit hole.

When we first came up with the idea of making fender flares for the T3, I honestly couldn't believe how many different configurations Volkswagen managed to build around essentially the same van.

Seriously.

You start looking into the T3 and suddenly you're discovering Transporters, Caravelles, Multivans, Westfalias, Syncros, Dokas, Tristars, special editions, limited editions…

And then things get really weird.

And it's not just the badges and trim.

Even something as simple as where you put fuel in the van can tell you what you're looking at.

On a standard 2WD T3, the fuel filler is located above the right front wheel.

On a Syncro, the fuel filler is located toward the right rear of the van.

Think about that for a second.

Same basic van.

Same generation.

But even the fuel filler ends up in a completely different part of the body.

And yes - we actually thought about that when designing our fender kit.

Our kit includes the parts needed for both fuel-filler configurations - the standard front-filler setup and the rear-filler Syncro setup.

So whether your T3 has the filler in the front fender or at the rear, you don't need a different kit.

And then you start looking at the wheel arches…

That's when things get even more interesting.

The majority of factory Syncros were actually 14", just like standard T3s. Then there was the rare factory 16" Syncro, which had a whole different package of modifications, including larger wheels, suspension changes, wider track and modified wheel arches.

So I started putting together a list of the different T3 configurations I could find.

🇺🇸 North America - Vanagon

• Vanagon

• Vanagon L

• Vanagon GL

• Vanagon Carat

• Wolfsburg Edition

• Weekender

• Wolfsburg Edition Weekender

• Multivan

• Camper / Westfalia

• GL Camper

• Carat Wolfsburg Limited Edition

• Syncro

• GL Syncro

• Camper Syncro

• GL Camper Syncro

🇩🇪 Europe - Passenger

• Transporter Kombi

• Caravelle C / CL / GL

• Caravelle Coach

• Caravelle Carat

• Carat

• Multivan

• Multivan Magnum

• Bluestar

• Whitestar

• Redstar

• Limited Last Edition

• Club Van

• Club Van Syncro

🇩🇪 Europe - Commercial / Work

• Transporter Kasten

• Kombi

• Pritsche

• Doka

• Doka Syncro

• Tristar

• Police

• Fire

• Ambulance

• and a whole bunch of other special-purpose versions

⛺ Westfalia

• Camping

• Joker

• Sport Joker

• Club Joker

• Top Joker

• California

• Atlantic

• Syncro camper variants

⭐ And then you get into the really weird stuff

• B32

• Oettinger WBX6

• Riviera

• and plenty of other special conversions

The more you look, the more ridiculous it gets.

One van.

One generation.

Hundreds of little variations, special editions, body configurations and equipment packages.

And that's what I love about old Volkswagens.

They weren't just vehicles.

They somehow ended up becoming completely different things for completely different people.

Anyway, after going down this rabbit hole, we figured we might as well make something useful out of it.

So we made another batch of our VW T3 fender flare kit.

6-piece set
3 mm ABS
Standard 14" wheel arches
2WD + 14" Syncro
Parts included for both fuel-filler configurations

They're available here:

https://www.wcomarket.com/product/vw-vanagon-t3-fenders-kit