Date:         Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:43:10 -0600
Reply-To:     Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: How many Vanagons
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

> Does anybody know how many vanagons there are in the US.  It's a
finite
> number and everytime somebody parts one out, it's one less.  I'm
just
> curious how many there are.  I'm amazed at how many businesses are
> flourishing by keeping these things alive.

i got these numbers from some book about vw buses, a long time ago ...

1980 -  150,805
1981 -  175,000
1982 -  175,000
1983 -  175,000
1984 -  175,000
1985 -  175,000
1986 -  175,000
1987 -  175,000
1988 -  175,000
1989 -  175,000
1990 -  175,000
1991 -   20,000
total 1,920,805

now, those mighty peculiarly even numbers of 175,000 are from the VIN
range given in the book for that year. same with the very low 20,000
for 1991 ... but remember, the Eurovan was also being produced in 1991
in Germany. so that's probably about right. i'm not sure, however, if
that number includes the Vanagons/T3s that were 'assembled' in Graz,
Austria, as many 1991 models were. if your 1991 VIN has MG in it, it
was assembled in Graz on the Syncro assembly line, even though it's
not a syncro.
and 175,000 might just be the limit of the assembly line in Hannover
for a whole year (11 months, actually. as i recall, they kinda shut
down the line for a month while most of Germany went on vacation, and
some poor folks had to stay and get the assembly line set up for the
next year's model).
i do recall that the Millionth (1,000,000) Vanagon rolled off the line
in 1985 ...and the six-millionth(6,000,000) Type 2 (all buses from
1950 to ...)
in 1986.  the 175,000 per year agrees with one article i have that
claims "nearly 500 Vanagons are produced every day ...", assuming
you're running seven days a week (479/day).

imported into the U.S. ...
1980 - 14,101
1981 - 11,479
1982 - 13,234
1983 - 14,695
1984 - 21,352
1985 - 12,303
1986 - 13,475
1987 -  9,401
1988 -  4,555
1989 -  4,466
1990 -  8,057 (vw had announced they PLANNED to sell 10,000 Vanagons
that year)
1991 -  ?,???
total 127,118+

the book didn't have any numbers for 1991. assuming that it was
roughly the same as for the previous years, percentage-wise, it would
likely be a very low 6 percent of total vanagon output or about 1,150
total. that seems way low to me, however, based on what i saw at the
dealers around that year. maybe the u.s. got a much higher percentage?
so the total of all vanagons imported into the u.s. from 1980 to 1991
would be in the neighborhood of 130,000 to 135,000. that would be my
guess.

so that means each one of us (with only one vanagon) has 0.0007692
percent of all the vanagons ever sold in the u.s.!!!! :)

unca joel