Date:         Tue, 29 Nov 94 08:49:47 CST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: 12 year model cycle

On Tue, 29 Nov 94 08:03:35 CST John Tauxe said:
>I'm new to this list, and have been amused by all this talk about air
>conditioning and refrigerators... Spare me!  :)  I have a 76 Westfalia (now
>in TN) which I drove around Texas for nigh ten years (even to big Bend Nat'l
>Park, where I did a lot of impromptu repairs) with no AC or fridge.  No
>problem.

boy, just wait til YOU get old. :)  i drove for 16 years w/o any a/c ...
and managed to make my left ear pretty deef from zooming down the highway
in a 71 bus, getting a "trucker's tan" ... and, yes, Big Bend IS livable
w/o a/c ... it's not comfortable, but it is livable. :) and ice chest make
living quite nice, actually, and are an ok substitute for fridges.

but there i was ... in 1986 ... with nothing better to do, so i traded ALL
my vw's and one porsche 914 for an 86 vanagon ... with power mirrors and the
fold-down backseat/bed ... and AIR CONDITIONING!!!!

in just a few months (i bought it in june. in alabama. and promptly drove it
to colorado), i was doing a bit of soul-searching. like, where the hell had
this a/c stuff been all my life!!! i could actually arrive somewhere without
having clammy underwear!! :)

so as you go through life, remember: Air Conditioning in Cars: it's for
Yankees and Old Folks. ;)

>Anyway, I noticed something else that you folks probably already know, since
>it seemed so obvious.  In the list of models, each was produced for 12
>years, it seems.  Is this a coincidence, or is it part of a Master VW Plan
>that just when they get the bugs (no pun intended) worked out they
>completely redesign the vehicle?  Do we anticipate that 2003 will be the
>last year ofthe Eurovan?

well ... sort of. only the middle two generations (68-79 and 80-91) are really
the 12-year cycle. the 1st generation runs from 1952 to 1967 ... i just got
lazy and made the program do everything to match the two middle cycles, so
if somebody comes up with a 1955 bus, i'm sunk.

but i think vw has a definite limit on the 'design life' of the buses, and
for nearly 30 years, it does seem to be 12 years. so, yes, i would expect
a replacemtne for the eurovan in about 2004-2005 or so. but with all this
computer-aided design and sales pressure and such, it might be much sooner
on the next one. i expect it to be a body-change (like from the 1979 to the
1980 bus), not a complete redesign (like the eurovan was).

>BTW, has anyone seen the Winnebago camper conversion for the Eurovan yet?

i saw one on the lot at Jim Ellis in atlanta, but i'd swear it wasn't a long
version. unfortunately, they didn't have any other EV's to compare it with.

joel