My brother stopped by last night and looked it over. He's the in-house bus expert. I was showing him the big stack of receipts I found along with the original owner's manual and purchase paperwork. We verified that it's an early Riviera. Here's the history lesson: Back in the day the factory authorized and sold campers that were built by Westfalia. These are far and away the most common camper you'll see around. The problem was that they sold like hotcakes but VW corporate would only allow dealers to buy a percentage of Westys. So, to get 10 campers, dealers were required to also buy 10 transporters (regular buses), 5 pickups, and 5 panels. <<Those numbers are probably not accurate and were meant to illustrate the circumstances<<. Many dealers just couldn't justify buying the harder to sell body styles just to get the Westys. So, Riviera Motors in Beaverton, OR (5 miles from me) decided that they would just buy panels (which had no purchase restrictions) and convert them. They quickly became popular and soon they were distributing their conversions to dealers all over the USA. In the '70s and '80s the Riviera was a strong seller and was similar to the Westy but had a larger pop-top and the interior cabinetry was different.
According to the paper trail it appears that this thing has had about 8 owners but never lived more than about 100 miles from where it was originally sold. Pretty interesting to see a receipt from 1970 that covered an "engine inspection" along with a valve adjustment and new valve cover gaskets. Total parts and labor cost was $5.90 :? .
