Date:         Fri, 23 Jun 1995 16:39:31 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         SStueber@aol.com
Subject:      Re: What's a Barndoor?

someone says:

>I've seen sliding side doors on late-model buses, dual side >doors on 
>microbuses, but what does the term barndoor term refer to?


The term "Barndoor" refers to the size of the engine compartment lid buses
through 1955.  The engine compartment was huge on them!  It was so large that
they didn't even have a rear cargo hatch.  The spare tire was even stored in
there (above the engine).  Not only that, you had to open the engine
compartment lid to put gas in them (ie. the gas tank filler pipe was located
inside the left hand side of the engine compartment.  The other unique thing
about them is that they had a hand crank to start the engine on those cold
winter days when the 6 volt electrical system just wouldn't quite do it.  If
you have the Hot VW's from November 1994, there are some really cool pictures
of them on page 78-79.

Sean Stueber
'63 Kombi
'73 westy