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Date:         Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:45:39 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject:      Re: in the year 2015......
In-Reply-To:  <84.504cf0f9.308e5f8b@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Does this subject remind anyone of an old Zigur and Evans song?

OK let me the among the first to respond to this troll : ), since I'm old enough to have seen what has happened to several generations of cars, all of them manufactured to be replaced in a year or so by a later model. When the continuum of model replacement is broken (as it has been with the vanagon, beetle, and mustang) and if the car already has an enthusiastic following and if you can still get parts, the car will be around for more or less forever. You might not see them everyday in the future, but that only drives the price up.

Look over the last few decades. The huge, sharp hulks of the seventies and eighties gave way to a generation of japanese suppositories which gave way to SUVs. You can depend this trend of boring, uninspired designs to ensure there'll be a market for unique cars like the vanagons as there will always be someone looking for a unique car that isn't part of the boring uninspired designs. Who knows what boring, uninspired trend will replace SUVs (I'm betting it will be boring, uninspired tiny SUVs) but you can bet that it will be boring and uninspired, and that people like us won't want one.

I think the reason that there are nearly 1000 people on this list is that the Vanagon is recognized for what it is, one of the best/most unique/most useful vehicles made and that most of them in good shape today will exist in 15 years.

Right now if you ask people in their 20s and thirties which van they prefer, it'll be the splittie or the loaf because of the body style. But if you ask younger kids, they like the vanagon because they don't have that emotional baggage that surrounds the early buses for most of us. They just want the coolest and best car, and that's the Vanagon. They don't care about VW history, and they don't make the distinctions we make among the models because they didn't live through ANY of those eras, including the Vanagon era. And those kids are the ones who will be buying these Vanagons from us when we pass them on.

Why on earth would anyone quit driving my 83 intercooled turbo diesel westy? It's not going to be rusty, engine parts will be available, and there's be something to burn it it for sure. And my 90 Carat, if it still has bumpers, will probably be even better than it is today at the rate its going. It's a great driving car, very useful, and like any collector car, it will depend on who's got it as to how they drive it. But they'll drive it. Watch as the body supply dries up and people will start taking better care of what's left, as happened with british sports cars in the 80s and 90s.

Jim

On Oct 24, 2005, at 11:02 AM, JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote:

> 10 years from now, i predict that the only vanagons still existing > will be > late model campers..a few dokas, and some specialty custom vans. the > passenger vans will be long gone.. the aircooled vanagons will be > gone. i predict > that 99% of those vanagons still remaining in 10 years, will have > engine > conversions. they wont be "daily drivers" anymore.. their owners > having sunk so > much money into them they are afraid to drive them down the street.. > > Most of the major vendors here on the list will have gone out of > business.. > or expanded their horizons to deal with newer passenger car models.. > Go Westy will be selling groud effect kits and cold air intakes for mk5 > jettas and golfs... and the like.. > :<) > > what are some of your predictions? > > chris >


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