Date:         Tue, 6 Feb 2007 22:06:03 -0800
Reply-To:     Nathaniel Poole <myth.wright@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Nathaniel Poole <myth.wright@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: New van Style
In-Reply-To:  <86476e250702062120g78790bdbnac6c1afdddd888cd@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Just the perspective of an acknowledged noob, but it seems to me that
the T2s had loads of panache and romance associated with them that
many were willing to forgive the model it's many drawbacks. It really
was/is an icon. The T3's retained a little bit of this, along with
many engineering problems, but reasonable price and great utilty meant
they would still have a following. But from what I have seen of them,
the last generation of van/buses have long since abandoned  what was
so attractive in the earlier models, and yet kept borderline
engineering and added very high cost. I'm not at all surprised that
they stopped making them. Most modern VWs cannot compete with the
Japanese for quality, reliability and resale value.

Better off buying a Honda van and putting a westy "kit" in it. Or even
an econoline :)


Nathaniel

On 2/6/07, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:
> RE: T4 comments
> Steve, that's one of the most informative posts about the Eurovan
> configuration I've seen, thanks.
> Here in the US we only saw the Winnabago conversion on the Eurovan base and
> it had a number of drawbacks in the layout.  The main objections I've see
> (and had when looking at EVCs about five years ago) was low clearance, lower
> clearance for the propane tank, less inside area (than a T3) and cost.  When
> I was looking for and bought my '90 Westfalia I seriously considered the
> later model (late '90s) EVCs I found but was spoiled after several years of
> camping in and '85 Westy.  And a major stumbling block was local prices, the
> Eurovan was around $10,000 more than a good clean '90 or '91 Westy.  For
> that amount of money, actually much less, I could buy and outfit a '90 Westy
> with everything that I might get from the Eurovan with the exception of ABS.
> BTW, part of my comments on the reliability of the earlier Eurovans
> (remember the discussion started about a '93) was based on the opinions and
> comments from a friend that was a service writer for a large VW dealer, I
> knew him from outside the VW community.  Others on various lists have made
> other comments less than flattering about them also.
>