Date:         Sat, 16 Jun 2001 20:31:49 +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:      Re: ?? SA Engine Conversion ??
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>By the way, the story of the Eurovan that Ari Ollikainen  put us onto was
>interesting.  The T2 was introduced in 1967 and had its best year in 1971
>just four years later.  After that it was downhill all the way to
>1978.  Every year a successful car is produced and remains on the road
>makes it harder to sell the same car in the future.  In that regard the
>Vanagon was its own worst enemy just as the Beetle was its own.   I'd like
>to see similar stats for the Vanagon and the Eurovan.  You can bet that VW
>has been tracking such stats closely.

Funny, the current Japanese van bodies (all forward-control/cabover
designs) were all introduced in 1989 and are still selling like hotcakes.
The only competition are the Frod Trans*it, very rare Fiat and Renault,
"Mercedes" ?MB100 and VW T4 Transporter (+Eurovan), none of which are any
danger saleswise or otherwise to the Nipponese, cheap as the Frod is. The
only real competition is the Hyundai H100, which is a Korean-made
current-model Mitsubishi Delica...

My feeling is that VW should have kept the rear-engine/IRS layout (or done
a midengine/IRS job) for the T4, but used a NEW DOHC engine design with a
flat full-length floor, with forward-control cab. Instead they screwed the
pooch and brought out a characeterless and totally anonymous poor-handling
FWD lump.

On another note, does "cabover" refer to the cab being over the engine or
the front wheels?


Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin, New Zealand
ph   64 (3) 473-8863
fax 64 (3) 479-7527
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
www.goingplatinum.com/member/vw1
www.highyieldcrusaders.ws/ref.html?ref=vw
www.aciimoney.com/index.shtml?vw1
VW & Toyota vans, Toyota diesels and Macintoshes rule