Date:         Mon, 03 Oct 94 12:50:46 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "J. Walker" <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Five Year Dream Car Pick

On Mon, 3 Oct 94 12:36:03 CDT Alistair Bell said:
>Maybe I should infuriate you more by mentioning that my second pick would be
>an Unimog - big expensive wheels and thirsty engine also.

ooh! ooh! i forgot all about the fabulous Unimog!!! :) yes, indeedy! now THAT
would be REAL intimidation on the road! wow! for those of you who don't know
what a Unimog is, it's a large multi-purpose/multi-configuration truck made
by Mercedes. you CAN get them in the states (there's a guy in new york that
imports them), but they start at over $100,000. you can put snow plows, snow
blowers, railroad car couplers, etc. on the front, and the back can be a
box, dump truck, living quarters van/box, whatever. this thing is THE ultimate
off-road 4x4 ... and it is bigger than the Hummer! you climb UP into this
thing. i have a road test on it at home and the view from the driver's seat
is pretty much like that of an 18-wheeler.

and talk about Ugly-Cute! woof. this thing wins hands down. why, it's even
uglier than the Citroen 2CV. :)  and the fuel economy isn't tooooo bad. i
think it was somewhere around 7-8 mpg. on the highway. in top gear.

now, for those of you who don't want to scare the beegeezus out of the folks
at the mall, there's an austrian alternative. made by Steyr-Daimler-Puch (sp?)
a little vanagon-sized truck called a Pinzgauer. it's also 4x4 and comes in
a whole bunch of different configurations, most of them suited to the army
type jobs. pretty neat looking though.

which brings up a latent thought from the bowels of my brain:
did anybody notice that when the french troops went into Ruwanda (a while
back) to rescue those orphans, the camera crew showed them (french) rolling
up in vw double-cab syncro vanagon pickup trucks? :) in olive drab, of course.

and just to show how impartial i am :) last night on some Discovery channel
special about the brain, they showed some woman with brain damage being
almost run over by a red eurovan. ;)

joel

but the picture i really like is in the History of the VW Bus video ...
three little split windows, all red and white, racing through the jungle in
south america. really neat. :)

hey there's a thought. who was it wanted the video of the syncros out in the
desert? this company called Wild about Wheels has a video that has a segment
called History of the VW Bus (and three other useless segments). sells for
about $20 for the tape. i can't remember if it shows what you wanted, but i
know it has something of the syncro on it. i can look tonight if you want.