Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 10:31:11 +1200
Reply-To: Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject: Cliffs, road markers, handling and sheep
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New Zealand does have a lot of sheep. I hate the damn things. Occasionally
I run one over; they run out in front of traffic when they get through
holes in the wretched wire fences that line every meter of every road in
the country.
There are also a lot of winding roads along steep hillsides; occasionally
the road collapses after heavy rains. I love bendswinging, but the thought
of coming around a bend at 70kmh and being the first to discover the road's
disappearance doesn't bear thinking about. So one doesn't think about it!
But you do see the occasional car way down there...In some places the drop
is 2000 feet, not just 200!
Those white 3x2" roadside poles, now replaced by thin plastic ones that
don't dent cars or rip out of the ground when hit, bear reflectors to show
where the road edge is at night, and they work well when they are spaced
closely enough.
One of the reasons I like VW vans is that you can really push them on bends
(and yes, the inside rear wheel is rather prone to lift on very tight bends
taken fast. At least the Caravelle doesn't corner with the drama of a
hard-driven early Split like the 57 I used to have).
Manual chokes...I remember them well. The old KE30-something Corolla coupe
had one. Yuck. But small engines without smog gear can run well. The 1500
carburetted Scirocco/Golf I engine of the mid1970s put out 110hp; try to
match that with the smog US version! Acceleration was rapid and top speed
was 180kmh (112mph).
Also of course we get what Americans for some reason call "European"
suspension setups. Most US-market vehicles get really soft damping and
probably springs and swaybars as well, and so don't handle nearly as well
as the same cars in other markets. I do not know whether this is true for
VW vans. Certainly it does for BMWs etc. Time for US enthusiasts to start
petitioning the government to prevent more undersuspended cars being sold,
ase people are dying because of this. Those "scariest chases' show how
US-market cars can fishtail and lose it when travelling in a straight line.
Wow. Rant rant. This isn't a dig at Americans, please note.
Andrew
PS Yep, Dunedin's not far north of the southeast corner of the South
Island, 365km south of Christchurch, where my van languishes without a
gearbox as i scrape toward getting the engine/trans swap begun.