I felt a bit like Cinderella returning the Volkswagen ID Buzz this week as I clicked the key fob to open the door on my Berlingo van.
I wasn’t at the ball, I just had a ball as I spent the day touring around my home town and the surrounding area in something very new, but something very familiar, which was ours for the day, courtesy of the Connelly Volkswagen dealership in Letterkenny.
Rosin was on hand to get things ready for the road and one of the sales team Marion was on hand to go over the basics of this striking green and white ID Buzz in a very professional manner.
Heated seats, heated steering wheel, climate control and all at the touch of a button. With my phone paired up and an instruction guide complete I moved silently out of the garage forecourt and headed off. The driving position in the iBuzz was brilliant, looking out through the vast windscreen.
With no gears or clutch to worry about in this automatic all electric vehicle (EV) driving this VW ID Buzz is a doddle. Sitting at the Polestar Roundabout I soon notice the attention that this iconic looking people carrier is drawing from fellow road users as they second glance at this different looking mode of transport.
On the dual carriageway I turned down the radio, well I didn’t really mean to turn down the radio, I meant to switch on the cruise control, serves me right for not listening properly to Marion before I left the garage. I soon have the cruise control on and I’m enjoying the silence in the cabin and the very slight sound that the tyres make whisking along. I decided to leave the radio off, I’m enjoying the moment.
We are heading over to Lifford for a spin even though it’s a dull enough day it didn’t feel that way in this brightly coloured interior. Arriving at our destination making our way through a few of the narrow streets in Lifford the ID buzz seems to be playing on the minds of other road users and better nature as they wave us out of junctions so they can get a good look at this different looking vehicle.
‘Oh my God – Did you buy that?#8217; A perfect stranger strikes up a conversation with me in an office as they look out the window of the ID Buzz parked up outside. Soon they were looking around it asking questions giving their views. I’m answering questions the best I can for someone who only got the keys to it a little over a half an hour ago. At the same time I’m watching how its appearance just seems to leave people free enough to express their views and dreams.
On the way back from Lifford I find Spotify from my phone and pump up the sounds.
Van Morrison singing ‘Into The Mystic’ the riff of both the acoustic and bass guitars kinda hit the nail on the head about this van in two different worlds
Hark now, hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic
264 million people have listened to this song according to Spotify but I doubt that as many listened to it looking out the window of one of these ID Buzz, driving along enjoying the view. I’m not quite sure if I’m in 2023 or 1973 this Volkswagen has turned full circle moved on an yet carried its charisma, the rattle of the old air cooled flat four engine may have disappeared but it is replaced with a silent electric motor which has returned to the original positions in the back driving the back wheels. As it once was before.
It’s lunch time when I arrive back in Letterkenny, the college and convent kids are out on their lunchbreak. None of these would remember the type 2 VW microbus this ID Buzz is recreating them old looks, ‘look at that beetle’ on of them calls out as I passed down the market square.
Our VW Camper Looking so beautiful on the cobble stone park up outside the old Lough Swilly Train Station in Buncrana. Photo Brian McDaid
I find myself looking at old places that the generations of this brand travelled before it in Letterkenny. I pull up briefly at the old garage door on the High Road where the late VW specialist Patsy Hamilton once worked out of where the familiar sight of this ID Buzz grandparents would be parked up for servicing. I even took a wee spin up an old road that now has houses built along it that once was the road that took you to the old Woodlands Stock Car Track and as I tuned where the road ended thought of days gone by of a friend of mine Ben Dunleavey that raced a very rare VW Karmen Ghia.
I recalled how a collector arrived from Dublin at the track the second Sunday we raced to see if he could buy this old orange coupe to restore it back to its former glory. That’s the kind of memories that this ID Buzz takes out. You can see so many people looking at this car and for that split moment they seem to imagine themselves away on a journey, be in the present or a memory of the past.
I was heading over to leave the I Buzz back and I conveniently managed to miss the right lane to arrive at Connelly’s VW dealership in Letterkenny and the next thing I knew I was in Rathmullan! Nothing wrong with the sat nav or anything like that, just me not ready to leave my wee buzz back. I had four different people from four different walks of life come up to me in Rathmullan while I was taking a few photos of this funky bus, looking around it giving their views.
As I head home on the final journey, thoughts of the original type 2 that I was lucky enough to do a wee write up on a few years ago in 2018 thanks to Donaghey Motors who had a restored version which I drove for a day. Iconic as to was the new I buzz has carried that charisma with it and included everything that’s new.
This new ID Buzz EV has a great range and is powerful to drive, passes slower moving traffic with effortless ease. There, at the upper price range starting around the €70,000 mark, they are only available as a five seater at the moment but I’m told that a seven seater is on the way. The boot in this one is massive and the back seats can fold flat to increase that space even more. The commercial version of this buzz is already available in van versions, two of which are sitting at the four court at Connelly’s dealership in Letterkenny.
As I handed the keys back to one of the sales team, they asked if I liked it and would I buy it. ‘I would in a heartbeat , if I had the money’ was my reply.
Memory Lane for the ID Buzz parked at the famous VW specialist Patsy Hamilton’s old garage on the High Rd, This week. Photo Brian McDaid.
This two tone launch model brings you a lot more than an all new electric people carrier, it gives you a different reaction for the better from other road users who slow down from their busy lives to give you the way , to let you out at a junction and to smile. Things like the old grab handles that you remember from the old beetles and the massive VW crest on the front of meeting you along the road. Just like the familiar face of the front of the type 2 all them years ago all, it takes you back. Even this loud green in the base of this two tone bus reminds me of shades of old colours not unlike the colour of our milkman’s old Vw pickup that we seen every day in life and nearly 50 years on never thought we would be pulling at memory strings that you never knew you had.
Happy motoring folks .