Date:         Thu, 11 Jul 2013 21:08:05 -0500
Reply-To:     Jarrett Kupcinski <kupcinski@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jarrett Kupcinski <kupcinski@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Is there anyone under 60 on this list???? WAS:Wife is done
              with Vanagon a...
In-Reply-To:  <51DF4A65.1000706@turbovans.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Thanks for your vote of confidence, David. I think we probably will make it.

Scott and Derek make interesting points about cultural shifts between generations, and I won't deny that Boomers see the world differently than Gen Xers and Millennials. Still, I gotta say that it sounds a lot like "kids these days" kind of talk, with accusations (implied or outright) of stupidity, laziness, or lack of ingenuity. But let's be honest: old men have been talking that way since, well, forever. And VW Buses and Vanagons will someday no longer be seen on roads not because the kids don't "get it" or because their Boomer champions have passed away. It'll be because there hasn't been one imported, let alone manufactured, in decades. To borrow a line from the Boomer playlist, all things must pass.

I was born in 1974, and a year later my parents drove a '70 VW panel van from Afghanistan (where I was born) to Luxembourg, where they caught a flight back to the States. Then they brought a brand new VW Bus. My dad and mom modded it (as kids these days call it) into a camper, and in it we travelled the American west. They sold it in the mid 80's, and VW vans left my life until I was an adult. In 1998 I bought a '73 Westy. Sold it and bought an '89 Westy in 2006. That van is Olly and now has a Zetec engine which I put in with my own two hands a year ago.

Why did I choose a Vanagon? Some of it was nostalgia, but a big part of it was because of the openness and flexibility of the platform. It wasn't because I'm a luddite and hate computers. Love 'em, in fact, and carry my iPhone with me everywhere. It was because I, like many people of my generation and the next, like doing stuff with our minds and our hands just as much as my parents did. Doubt that? Look up the Maker Movement. Or note that the average age of sellers on Etsy is 41. People who are younger than you (and me) are making stuff and solving problems. Admittedly in many cases, those problems, tools, and even solutions look different than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

The thing is, we all work with what we have at hand. Sadly, there just aren't that many VW vans around anymore for people to work with. It's not because people are dumber or don't have the skills.

I'm not trying to cause a generational debate here. In fact, I'd argue that we're all a lot more alike than different here on this list. There were never that many Vanagons on the road to begin with, and yet here we all are, a couple decades later, still tinkering with them. Still talking about them. Still driving them. Volks young and old are still building businesses around this single model of NLA automobile, which is a bit odd, really. What the van symbolizes to each driver may be different as we each pass through our various stages of life. But if you're on this list, that means you, regardless of your age, were drawn to a vehicle that the majority of our culture decided to forget. That makes us all collectively different from the rest of our respective generations.

-Jarrett Kupcinski
89 Bostig'd Westy