On what must be the busiest travel weekend of the year, I was tickled by this L.A. Times article about two Brazilians on a modern day hippie road trip across Latin America in a VW Bus.

The car is unsafe by today’s standards, of course. But what it lacks in functioning crumple zones it makes up for with it’s approachability factor. It’s a much better head-turning and friend-making car than, say, a Camry. But then the ability to get strangers to smile isn’t usually designed into modern cars, and Volkswagen has announced it’s discontinuing production of the microbus at the end of this year.

Thus we all will receive, for Christmas, a succession of news articles featuring people telling us their VW Bus stories.

Here’s one about a couple that has made a business out of giving people tours of San Francisco in a VW Bus. San Francisco is always interesting, but it seems this business is built mostly on the feeling people get around the car, especially in that historic hippie setting.

It doesn’t take long to find more – a 22 year old North Carolinian who has been dreaming of owning a VW Camper since he was 14, and a Brit renting one for a family holiday in the UK.

And of course I know there are fond VW bus memories on the Trail from Crow Girl and tim, which I would love to hear more about.

No doubt once production ceases (or even before), there will be calls to bring back the bus!

What discontinued product would you like to bring back?