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Date:         Mon, 8 Jan 2001 12:03:47 -0500
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <busdepot@EMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <busdepot@EMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Back from Mexico- Drove a 2000 VW Kombi!
Comments: To: type2@type2.com, vintagebus@type2.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Well, I'm back from my trip to Mexico. I won't bore you with details. Was a combination of business and pleasure, the latter diminished greatly by two consecutive flight cancellations, followed by the loss of all of our luggage, not to mention that our 2 year old daughter got the flu one day into the trip. Fortunately the second half of the trip was much better than the first, and I'm sitting here in 20-degree Pennsylvania with a suntan so I can't complain too much!

One of the high points of the trip was my first opportunity to drive a nearly new (2000 model year) Brazilian made watercooled Kombi! For those unfamiliar with it, the Mexican/Brazilian Kombi is a '68-79 era bus body with an inline watercooled Golf engine. Rumor has it that it may soon go the way of the old Beetle in South America once production of the T4 ("Eurovan") there gears up.

The bus looks very similar to the '73-79 German busses, except with a black radiator grill on the front. (I took a few digital pictures and will try to get them up soon; or find the Brazilian VW website if you're curious.) The roof of ours was slightly raised with a small fiberglass extention to increase headroom (a factory fitted feature). The dash looked more like a Golf dash than a Bus one, with headlight switches etc. that were obviously from a Golf. I couldn't get used to seeing a water temp gauge and "real" heater controls on it! :-) The seating inside was plusher than on an old bus (gray cloth and matching panels, contoured seats, and headrests; "our" Kombi had a 1/3 - 2/3 front seat, 3 person middle seat whose end flipped forward for access to the rear, and 3 person rear seat). Bumpers were kinda neat looking, black plastic "wraparounds" that resemble the ones used on the '88-91 Vanagons here in the states. Mirrors (much larger than German bus ones), door handles, etc. were also black. Lots of little differences compared to a German bus, such as Golf style hatch struts holding up the rear hatch, an upper engine compartment hatch that latched from the inside rather than from the top, etc. I have to admit that with well under 10,000 miles on it, though, the Kombi already had its share of dash rattles, falling-off trim parts, etc. I certainly would have been unhappy if our New Beetle were like that at 10k miles. But to be fair, it was a rental (thus not kindly treated by some people), and some of the roads in Mexico are not too kind either.

The Kombi had noticably more power than its aircooled cousin (even compared to the later ones with the 2 liter aircooled engine). In fact, it seemed about as powerful as my '89 Westy despite the smaller engine size (remember, it weighs much less too). Acceleration was smooth and responsive. I easily passed trucks on the highway (on level ground) - a new experience to me when driving a Bus! :-) It was odd, though, to hear the "wooshing" sound of a Golf engine in the back, rather than the familiar tick-tick-tick of an aircooled engine. But while the power was like that of a Vanagon, the handling was very similar to a late model Bus. It was more easily wind-blown than a Vanagon (higher center of gravity), and had the typical Bus feel in the front end (very tight, perhaps less "mushy" than a Vanagon; you "felt" the road more for good and for bad). So, predictably, the overall feel was that of driving a bus that had the power of a watercooled Vanagon.

I was surprised at how easily the Golf engine fit into the Bus engine compartment, with a ton of room to spare. It looked like you could have fit an engine 25% larger in there if you tried. Some of the parts in the engine compartment were immediately recognizeable as Vanagon parts, such as the coolant overflow and recovery tanks (both the same as on a Vanagon, and German made). Exhaust system was very straight forward and non-catalyst.

I want one! Too bad you can't import them to the U.S.

- Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. www.busdepot.com (215) 234-VWVW


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