I have a friend who has a camper in the family of this 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia. His is an ’82, and he lives up a hill. It’s not a mountain, more like a hillock, and he can barely get the thing to make it home most nights. That even after he spent several thousand dollars on the engine. I doubt the van for sale in Lakewood, Washington is that incapable of self-motivation, having had the engine done just 1000 miles ago, but neither would this be a fun car to get to 65mph on an onramp for a smooth merge. That hasn’t stopped a series of owners from driving it nearly 220,000 miles to date, however. Now it’s someone else’s turn, and there’s currently a healthy handful of bids that have run the price up to $7100, though the reserve is considerably down the road of this.

Could running this hotel-on-wheels be a money-saving proposition? The buy-it-now price is $16,500. At a hundred bucks a night for a hotel room, less the $25 bucks a night it costs to camp, you’re looking at 220 nights sleeping in this thing to make it free. But do you really think four adults can sleep here comfortably, as the ad suggests? Fitfully, maybe. Not the least of which is because while I see a fridge and a gas stove (more economizing—cheap meals on the road), there’s no hint of an AC unit, so those are going to be some steamy nights in some parts of the country.

Still, if you could get this Vanagon well below reserve, you could have a very off-the-grid type of hobby car. At the least, the kids would surely get a kick out of staging campouts in the driveway, and if the big one (earthquake, tornado, flood—whatever your area is susceptible to) ever hits, you’re still going to have a place to cook a hot meal while your neighbors wait for the gas in their houses to come back on. Thinking of that, maybe my friend is not that far off in his reasoning for keeping this, his dream machine. That’s a plan as long as he hides the VISA card statements so Mrs. T doesn’t see what it costs him to keep his van on the road.

So check this 1983 Westfalia out here on ebay, then dive in. You might not be buying a proper VW 1960s hippie van, but you would have a decent grocery hauler, lumber store goods retrieval machine, or, like my friend, slow-as-heck commuter car. And if you live uphill from work like he does, you’re good. You can coast to work as fast as gravity will take you. Just don’t plan on getting home all that quickly.