Date:         Tue, 12 Apr 94 16:59:03 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         STAFFORD@zenith.dnet.hac.com
Subject:      Water-cooled Mexican bus info, anyone?

On Tue, 12 Apr 1994 dunham@mpd.tandem.com (Jerry Dunham) wrote:
>Subject: Re: Sportsvans (sic)
>I can't believe that development costs for putting a Passat drivetrain 
>under the floor of a Vanagon would have been very great, and they might 
>well have garnered more sales here in this market.

Apparently, the Mexicans figured this one out as they put a water-
cooled powerplant into the bread-loaf style body platform. Someone
wrote the other day that these are powered by 4-cyl Golf motors?
I don't know about the busses, but I hear the Mex. beetles are selling
like hotcakes South of the border.
              *Please tell me more about this machine.*


On Tue, 12 Apr 94 Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu> wrote:
>Subject: Sportsvans: the saga continues ...
>...
>and speaking of bread-loaf/bay-window buses, why don't you guys jump in?
>surely someone with a 1968-1979 has considered a vanagon or eurovan? what'd
>you think?  i found the vanagon to be not as good for running out through

I drove an '87 Vanagon on the highway and was *very* impressed with the 
amount of room inside. The handling and performance were improved, as I 
expected. And it had less of the "tractor-trailer rig" driving position 
experienced in my '73.  Poorer quality bumpers and lots of plastic though.
Eurovan - The local dealer didn't have any and the price scared me off.

>>brake-slamming butt-dropping **Cool** feeling ...
>yeah, but how many of your passengers have actually screamed when you did
>this? :)  i mentioned it as something John and Mary Q. Public, Average
>American Buyers, wouldn't like.

To make up for that, there's the "oh sh!t" handle on the dashboard. :-)

Jack Stafford
'73 Westfalia               stafford@zenith.dnet.hac.com