Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:05:31 -0600
Reply-To: Matt Drew <t3vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Matt Drew <t3vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
In-Reply-To: <27FC5544-88CD-4963-9D42-0E58536DAFE5@mac.com>
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"79 down is a bus. 80-91 is a vanagon."
It would seem most logical to eschew semantics and subjective nomenclature
on this subject (as it's come up before, in one form or another) by taking
the "bus/vanagon" argument down to its simplest, most basic premise: T2 v.
T3 (regardless of what YOU may call them).
While MOST would consider the T2 a "Bus" (Microbus, Kombi, etc) and a T3 a
"Vanagon", I find it fairly common when looking at postings (ebay, Craig's
list, etc) for people to interchange the terms "Bus" and "Vanagon" fairly
regularly, often using BOTH terms in the same description of the vehicle -
even in the same sentence.
From a Transporter enthusiast's perspective, this seems almost heretical . .
. but from a marketing/advertising/sales perspective, it makes sense - why
limit those viewing what you have for sale?
Just for the record, the first T2 Transporters went into production (in
Europe) in late 1949 and had found their way to the US by 1951.
After variations, improvements, upgrades, etc. to the T2 throughout the
50's, 60's and 70's, the body style changed from the rounder T2 to the more
"bricky" T3 in 1980 and remained in production (as we all know) for the US
market until 1991.
All that being said, I come from a long line of VW Transporter enthusiasts
(my grandfather bought one of the first ever produced) which include my
uncle - who will ALWAYS (regardless of whether he's talking about his old
'64, my last '87, current '90, or his '95 EV) call them all . . . "Buses".
C'est le bus, non?
:o)
Matt
'90 GL "Blackbeard"
On 1/15/07, Warren Lail <vw.bus@mac.com> wrote:
>
> chris turner wrote:
>
> "79 down is a bus. 80-91 is a vanagon. "
>
>
> Er ahh, not to stir up a controversy with my bus brother chris, and
> especially since right now I'm only getting to read bits and pieces
> of the digests, but I drive a 1988 VW bus that is called, for
> marketing purposes, a Vanagon. The same bus is called a Transporter
> (England), a Minibus (South Africa) (through 2002) and who knows what
> in other places around the globe. If it looks like a bus, sounds
> like a bus, smells like a bus, has a rear engine like a bus, causes
> the eyes of little kids to open wide when they see it like a bus,
> gets blown around in the wind like a bus, toots it horn like a bus,
> makes others who drive buses wave when we pass on the highway like a
> bus . . . then as far as I'm concerned it's a bus.
>
> Billy Bones, a bus :-)
>
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