Date:         Sun, 9 May 2004 17:17:16 -0700
Reply-To:     Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: State of the List... State your ages!!!!!!! :<)
In-Reply-To:  <v04011707bcc40c5f3459@[192.168.0.101]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Age 53 and I’m not currently a VW guy, but I want a
Westy.  Bad.

First vehicle purchase was an engineless ’62 Beetle
with fabric sunroof.  Never got that car going.

A few years later in the military I bought a ’63
camper, which I now know to describe as a hatchroof
Westy split with a roof rack.  When the brakes went
out on that I foolishly continued to drive it for two
more weeks.  You can be forgiven a lot in Austin,
Texas (home of the UT Longhorns) when the vehicle you
drive is orange and white.  When I tried to jack it up
to do the brake work I discovered that jack points
kept going right up through the (nicely painted over)
rusty rocker panels and Bondo.  Oh, well.  Sold that
and bought Amurrican.

Later on got a ’76 Dasher wagon, which I loved.  Moved
to New England and then out west where it died an
oil-smoky death.  Since then there have been a Nissan
pickup and a Mopar minivan, each going over 300K
miles; their utility, reliability and thrift proved
unbeatable during my years as road rep in the bicycle
biz.

Two years ago a buddy gave up bay Westies after 30
years and two vans.  I suddenly developed the
inexplicable and hitherto unfelt need for a Vanagon
Westy.  I’ve never driven a Vanagon, I don’t camp, and
the van I have now is, from everything I’ve read on
this list, a better vehicle in nearly every respect,
but I still want a Westy and I’m dangerously close to
getting one.  We’ll see.  Meanwhile I’ll keep posting
Vanagon finds in Virginia.





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