Date:         Sun, 7 Feb 2021 01:34:01 +0000
Reply-To:     Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Bogus engineering
In-Reply-To:  <117402502.2341294.1612658301612@mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

 Another thought on this topic:  VW corporation not only was working on Vanagons, but a whole slew of other projects.  If you were CEO, how would you attack this dilemma?  They only had so many engineers to go around for their multitude of projects.  How do you get the most bang for buck?  You direct those engineers (no matter how much they loved the Vanagon project) onto other projects, with better projections for profit.  I would do the same.

    On Saturday, February 6, 2021, 4:39:04 PM PST, Richard Koerner <rjkinpb@sbcglobal.net> wrote:  
 
  Cooling jacket around motor?  Oddly shaped fuel tank?  Exposed electrical connections?  Byzantine and difficult to bleed cooling system?
Why did all these things happen?
I've got one answer:  Money
Yes, we know for sure that the VW engineers could have delightfully solved each and every one of these issues above and beyond our expectations.  Talented group.  They would have been happy to do so. 

So why not?  At the time in the mid 80's there was a fierce competition starting to happen.  Competitors noticed that the Vanagon "mini-van" was a really great idea, and so they developed their own.  For the VW engineers, they had to somehow come up with solutions to provide an equal or better product....but now here is the rub:  at a competitive price point.  The Marketing and Sales guys probably put up a SOLID price point; no more discussion.  Meanwhile, the Vanagon platform had already been developed, tooled up, and was in production.  So the engineers had to work around it as best they could.

If you look at the numbers, 1984 was max production for the Vanagon.  And 1985 was close....but then numbers dropped as competition challenged.  What to do...What to do?
They did the best they could.  Maybe many of those talented guys left, probably in frustration.  Nothing happened for a couple years.  And then we get the 1993 Eurovan.  Ooops.

  
> > On 5 Feb , 2021, at 8:07 AM, Larry Alofs <lalofs@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Of course they did many things right in the overall design of the
> Vanagon;
> > otherwise we would not be so devoted to them.  However,anyone who has
> > fooled around with these vehicles for 20 years or so has sometimes asked
> > themselves "What were they thinking?"
> >  A few things come to mind easily, the most serious in my mind being the
> > idea that you could just wrap a cooling jacket around an air cooled
> > engine.  Then we have an oddly shaped fuel tank with about 10 openings,
> > many electrical and ground connections placed where they are exposed to
> > leaks from the corner of the windshield, a byzantine and difficult to
> bleed
> > cooling system with its "tower" and unique and troublesome pressure cap,
> > etc.
> >  Of course hindsight is always easier, and as someone already said, many
> > of these and other problems resulted from cost driven compromises.
> > But...we cannot assume that any given "feature" is present just because
> the
> > VW engineers were more wise and knowing than us.