Wife thinks I'm crazy!

[daytimer]

Hello all, Daytimer here. I'm new the the forum. As my subject line says my wife thinks I'm crazy, because recently I started talking about buying a VW Westfalia as our second car, probably & 80's model. Since I ride my bike to work I primarily use our current 2nd car for family camping trips around Southern CA. My wife actually owned a 80's VW westfalia back in the 90's while she was touring with a circus (really I'm not making that up) and 3 months later and about $6000 in repairs & hotel bills she sold it vowing to never own one again. My question to you all is, are they really as unreliable as she encountered, or was there perhaps a "dark period" for VW vans that I should avoid? If they are reliable, are there reputable mechanics in the Los Angeles area that can work on them? I look forward to your replies and remain hopeful that my dreams of tooling around in my VW Westfalia are not as hairbrained as my wife belilves.

Daytimer