Date:         Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:27:38 -0500
Reply-To:     sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Sam Walters <sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET>
Subject:      NYTimes.com Article: AUTOS ON MONDAY /Collecting: Love Beads Are
              Gone, but Microbus Beat Goes On
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

The article below from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by sam.cooks@verizon.net.


This should give the list a copy of an article about VW and buses, mostly the older pre-Vanagon buses that appeared today in the NY Times.  But it does mention some topics recently discussed - no more vans for now and the vans origins as part truck.

Will watch to see if the whole thing comes through.


Enjoy,

Sam

sam.cooks@verizon.net


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AUTOS ON MONDAY /Collecting: Love Beads Are Gone, but Microbus Beat Goes On

November 29, 2004
 By JERRY GARRETT





Huntington Beach, Calif.

SIGHS of disappointment swept through the ranks of the
Volkswagen faithful last spring when the company announced
that it would not put its Microbus design study from the
2001 Detroit auto show into production.

Like the New Beetle, which sprang almost directly from an
earlier show vehicle, the Microbus prototype borrowed
freely from the design of a cult favorite. But as it faced
financial problems, VW management decided that a revival of
the seminal minivan, a symbol of the freewheeling 60's to
many who are now in their 60's, would have limited appeal
outside the United States.

The devotion of American fans, though, has not faded, if a
gathering of pre-1968 buses in Southern California last
month is an accurate indicator. Even so, their commitment
is not unlimited.

"Are you kidding?" Rick Clark, a veterinarian in Carmel,
Calif., said when asked whether he had driven his '54 panel
van the 400 miles from home. "I'd still be driving it. This
can only go about 40 miles an hour."

Mr. Clark, who bought his bus - formerly a potato chip
delivery van in Gloucester, England - in 2001, counts
himself a lover of Transporters, as the buses are known,
and the people they attract. "I can go to events like this
anywhere in the world and meet, like, a retired
industrialist talking to a bald guy with a tattoo on his
head about the merits of the air-cooled engine. Where else
can you find a community of auto collectors as diverse?"

The Huntington Beach event was billed as the largest in the
United States for "Splitties," a nickname given to 1950-67
buses because of their divided two-pane windshield. The
meet attracted Deadheads in graffiti-covered buses, lowered
"Cal-look" surfer vans, day campers, families with enough
children to fill nine seats and even a gardener with his
lawnmower and landscaping tools in back.

VW, famous for sticking with designs like the Beetle for
decades - for generations, in fact - introduced its
utilitarian little bus in 1950, and completely restyled it
just once over the next three decades. The later
generations, the Vanagon of 1979 and the Eurovan introduced
in 1992, bear little relation to the originals aside from
the basic big-box shape.

Not everyone was enraptured with the ungainly "bread loaf,"
as kinder critics called the early models. The first
Microbus was skewered for being a 2,500-pound vehicle with
motive power on par with today's riding lawnmowers. The
van's size and shape brutally overtaxed the
1,131-cubic-centimeter, 25-horsepower engine, which was
limited to a "long-distance maximum speed" of 47 miles an
hour, according to the manual. The van porpoised down the
road, its wheels tended to fold under in turns and it would
all but stop in a headwind.

The versatile rear-engine layout was adapted to many forms
including a pickup, a high-roof delivery van, a camper and
the Kombi model with removable seats. As a public service
vehicle, versions were produced as mail trucks and even
ambulances, albeit very slow ones.

The VW bus was both crudely primitive and cleverly
innovative.

As Mr. Clark demonstrated, it could be started with a hand
crank, like a horseless carriage, until the late 1950's. It
was so minimalist that a dashboard was an option. The
heater pulled its warm air supply from across the engine,
with all the attendant smoke and aroma. Air-conditioning?
Surely you jest.

In original form, the turn signals were not blinking lamps,
but lighted semaphore arms that flipped out from the side
pillars. The headlights were weak, a result of the 6-volt
electrical system used until 1967, more than a decade after
most cars had switched to 12 volts.

But it was also available with dual cargo doors on each
side, years before any competitor had them. A four-door
Double Cab pickup - like today's popular crew-cab trucks -
was another early innovation.

Chris Horan regularly takes his lowered custom Microbus to
vintage-car "cruise nights" near his home in Pasadena.
"Mine is probably overrestored," he said. "There is always
some extra part you're looking for, something else you want
to have chromed. These things are a way of life."

Mr. Horan bought his bus 14 years ago while he was still in
high school, for $1,600 from a desperate seller who was
trying to raise bail. "It's probably worth $30,000 to
$35,000 now," he said. "I've heard of some going for
upwards of $50,000."

Mr. Horan's 21-window Deluxe model is prized by collectors
for its quaint features like Safari windshield panels that
open outward from the bottom, "vista windows" lined up on
the roof like a sightseeing railcar and an enormous canvas
sunroof.

Greg Guenthner, a Microbus owner from Northridge, Calif.,
keeps his baby swathed in blankets in the garage when he is
not driving it. It survived one major earthquake with only
a few scratches, but Mr. Guenthner worries that it would
not last even one night on the street.

"These things are so popular, and in so much demand," he
said, "it wouldn't be there in the morning."

That's exactly the fate of a 21-window bus belonging to
John Saavedra of Whittier, Calif. It disappeared three days
before the Huntington Beach meet.

"The city paved my street, and I had to park it overnight
one street away," Mr. Saavedra said as he passed out
"Wanted" posters. "The next morning it was gone."

Niels Ouwersloot considers himself lucky to have found an
abandoned '66 camper model that he picked up at an auction
for "virtually nothing."

"It was ugly on the outside," he said of his diamond in the
rough, "and stinky, slimy and dirty on the inside."

But he and his girlfriend restored it in minute detail, as
a true labor of love. When it was finished they took it on
an overnight stay at Joshua Tree National Park. The next
morning, Mr. Ouwersloot proposed.

"It was very romantic," he said, teary-eyed. "Of course she
said 'yes.' What do you think?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/automobiles/29CARS.html?ex=1102745658&ei=1&en=1f0801b000186d17


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