Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:55:30 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: vanagons are rare....on the east coast
In-Reply-To: <e8a8.7fc7e308.3bdcba0a@aol.com>
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Down on the Kenai Peninsula out side the Town of Kenai on what was known
as the K-beach road was the most wonderful junk yard. It was enormous.
Row after row after row of dead vehicles of every stripe. It was always
a wonder to me how so many different kinds of vehcicles made it to
Alaska to fulfill someones dream only to die and wind up in the auto
grave yard. There was on row in that yard that was nothing but VW's -
Beetles, Splitties, Loafs, every description of VW van imaginable. There
were some VW vans there that I have never seen anywhere else before or
since. It was in Kenai in 1990 that I bought my first Vanagon - a
Classic brown '85 GL. I began to learn about the vans - but I knew
virtually nothing about them. In 1995 I flew south and spent the winter
in the Lower 48, and when I went back in the Spring of '96 - I needed
some parts for a beetle that I also had, so drove out to that junk yard
- and it was GONE!!!! Totally! Like a great spaceship had arrived and
using a tractor beam had literally scraped the ground clean of even any
nuts, bolts or washers that might have been dropped by someone taking
parts. I was told that all the content of the yard has been sold to an
international scrap metal outfit and they had come in with crushers and
crushed every vehicle, the hauled them away to a ship dock for loading
and shipped them out. I was stunned. That yard had some wonderful old
cars and buses. A sad day for Alaskans and the VW community. There was
nothing else like it in the whole state.
John
John Rodgers
Clayartist and Moldmaker
88'GL VW Bus Driver
Chelsea, AL
Http://www.moldhaus.com
On 10/28/2011 9:08 PM, JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote:
> ive been hitting up all the major junkyards in southeast PA recently
> looking for parts for my tow vehicle (ford van) and have not seen ONE vanagon in
> the junkyards... theyre literally all gone.. i dont see any on the
> roads either...... maybe the story is different on the west coast but on the
> east coast.. they are pretty much nonexistant anymore...
>
> years back i used to find at least one during a junkyard run...but no
> more...
>
>
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