Camping Trade World_Issue 15

Dispatches
From 1988 up until 2004, the model was produced
by conversion company Westfalia based on the T3.
Around 22,000 of these vehicles were produced
before Volkswagen decided to bring the production
in house. Camper production was established on an
area of 7,500 square metres in the Limmer district
of Hanover. Initially, around 20 vehicles were built
every day by 35 production employees. Productivity
steadily increased over the years, with around 15,150
California vehicles built in 2017. Construction of
the 100,000th California in Limmer was celebrated
the following year. Today, just five years later, the
total has already reached 200,000 vehicles. Up to
150 vehicles are built every day by 600 employees in
three shifts.
Hartmut Rickel, spokesman of the management
board of Volkswagen Group Services, said:
“Production of the California in Limmer has
developed very impressively – as the figures show:
at the start of production in 2004, 2,104 vehicles left
the line. This year, the Volkswagen Group Services
team is planning to produce 31,000 units. This
increase and the further development of the Hanover
site into a future-oriented production facility make
us extremely proud. On behalf of the Management
Board, I would like to thank our employees at the
location for this success. Without them, this increase
would not have been possible.”
The successor to the California 6.1 will also come
from Hanover from 2024 and will be manufactured
according to the same principle as the current model:
the base vehicle is manufactured at the main plant
in Hanover-Stöcken, where it receives the necessary
cut-outs for the roof, windows and connections,
for example. It is then converted into a camper
van according to customer wishes by experts in the
California production department located eight
kilometres away; this production site is operated by
Volkswagen Group Services.
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