Volkswagen California: can it do big miles and random semi-extreme camping?

Top Gear

2 days ago

The Arctic. Minus 20°C. Sounds just about perfect for a Top Gear mini-break in a VW Cali'
A cosmic sea lapping against the shores of our atmosphere, that's the way I think of the aurora borealis. I've seen the northern lights in full force before, and it really was a gently gobsmacking moment, waves of greens, yellows and reds blushed across the night sky in watercolour washes, wonder reflected in the backs of eyes. At the spring equinox, some 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 12 miles from the Russian border with Finland, camped on an ice lake as far from artificial light pollution as I could reasonably get, I thought I had a chance of a repeat performance. Nope. There's nothing. Nada. Zilch.
It's -20°C, I can't be bothered to put on enough clothes to go outside and it wouldn't matter if I did – the sky has been painted institutional grey by clouds intent on Valium views. Still, we hoped for the lights, but what we're actually here for is an untypically deep dive into whether or not the new Volkswagen California camper is actually any good at big miles and random semi-extreme camping, and how aggressively this Ocean spec can defend a price of more than £80k. So far, so unhypothermic, I'm already counting it as a win.
We began, some 700 miles ago, in Helsinki. A longer than anticipated supply run in an absolutely enormous Finnish supermarket for vital survival foods (mainly Jaffa Jims and coffee, the Jims being indigenous Jaffa Cakes, you have to be adventurous in foreign climes), before barging our way to Kempele, just south of the larger town of Oulu for a quick 'n' dirty overnight.
Photography: John Wycherley
Initial impressions of the Multivan-based California are good. It's got the kind of acceleration that's best described as a gentle push from kind hands, 62mph from rest reached in something around 10 seconds, the point something lost in the mildly gruff combination of 2.0-litre four cylinder petrol engine and seven cog DSG gearbox. The changes are fast, the engine powerful enough at just over 200bhp/236lb ft, but this is a big thing – 2.4 tonnes of weatherproof textile and metal – and we've jammed a bit more than the 450ish kg of official payload into its gut.
But it'll settle right back at motorway speeds, especially the Finnish max of 62mph, steering, suspension and brakes all the gentle side of good enough. It's a lightly cumbersome car, but a very nippy house, and small and swivelly enough to negotiate a tight underground car park or urban traffic without needing HGV training. Big miles are easily – if relatively sedately – covered without issue.
It is not, however, the easiest thing to convert to overnight accommodation when you're very tired and everyone else in the crew has a convenient hotel room. And you're staying in the back end of what amounts to a truck stop. It also doesn't have a toilet. Or a shower. Which will become relevant later. But we're going for rest here, not necessarily relaxation, so I just fold the rear pair of seats (the Cali is a four seater) – after reversing the headrests – flap out the mattress pad, swivel the dual captain's chairs, attach/insert/pull down the blackout window blinds and set the auxiliary petrol heater to max.
And then wait a bit for it to warm up... most of the above requires open doors and fiddling, and it's still into the double minus figures, and snowing. I don't pop the popup roof, it's not insulated enough and I would likely freeze in some sort of really unfortunate rictus, so low roof it is. And it's... nice. Warm, at least, but with a slight lack of storage and minimal headroom. Yes, you've got cupboards, but not many, and there's no space for a portable toilet, so I resort to, um, bottles. But it's actually a decent bed for one, although tight for two. And you lose the upper sleeping deck when it's too cold.