THE BUS IS BACK

A classic VW gets an electrifying return. [Don't call it a minivan, man.)

- JESSE WILL

My last experience with a Volkswagen microbus-actually it was a Vanagon-involved pushing a friend's expiring husk of a machine uphill in Brooklyn while pondering the "Steal Your Face" sticker slapped to its rear window. (Somehow I feel like many of you have had a similar experience.) That in mind, it was a shock to sit shotgun in the seat of a prototype model of a revived VW bus-the first in three years as it shot through the streets of East Austin, surging on electric power. Was it a flashback?