Date:         Thu, 9 Nov 1995 00:22:29 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         rickgo@halcyon.com (Rick Gordon)
Subject:      local VWs for sale; auto show

Bremerton paper had an ad under RV's tonight:

'77 Westfalia, recent new motor, sleeps 4, exc. $2950
360-692-8357

Bainbridge paper had the following ad:

'83 VW Vanagon camper, 5 spd, good cond, stereo,
sink, refrig, Z-bed, 95K miles, $2850/obo
206-842-9588


On a related note, I stopped by the Puget Sound Auto Show
tonight. Got to crawl around inside the EV camper, and talk
to someone there who *seemed* to know something.
That camper is certainly nice.

Dealer rep there claimed that:
- the Sharan is not going to be brought
into the US - we have too many minivans already;
- VW-USA and VW-AG are in the midst of negotiations regarding
  the use of the VR6 in the EV. He claimed that VW-AG wants them to
  charge several thousand $ more, since they always do when they put in the
  VR6. But that VW-USA feels that the EV price is already high for the
  American market. He claimed that this decision will be made by
  Feb '96, in which case we'd starting seeing the new engines sometime
  in the summer.
- VW continues to send EV Westfalia's to Canada, but they're much more
  money. (Anyone know what they're asking up there?)
- VW-USA will continue to import and sell the EV camper for '96 year
  regardless of which engine is in it.

Now, I don't know the truth value of any of the above. It could have been
all BS. I got a nice, plastic VW key fob though! And a disk containing a
Web browser from Spry, but it's only for Windoze so I'll have to fire that
machine up later and see what they put on it.

oh, and related to the auto show: those Hummer's they have make the Synchro's
look like toys. I also peeked inside some other van conversions - bzzzztt! lame!
Land Rover Defender 90 looks like a fun vehicle to beat up;

I haven't really been following new car prices that closely lately, it was
pretty depressing! Although many of the makers have your 'basic
transportation' cars available for under $12K, most of the vehicles are
closer to $20K (even pickup trucks), the "sport utility' ones start at $25K
and go up pretty rapidly.
(What does one do with a $50K Range Rover anyway? I'd hate to take it on
gravel roads - worried that it would scratch the paint or something.)

Given these prices, the $28-30K they're asking for the EV camper isn't all
that unreasonable. It's still pretty damn expensive though.
It would also seem that, given these prices, it is quite worthwhile to dump
a few hundred $$ into your old VW occasionally - it beats making those
monthly
payments!

-rick

Rick Gordon
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
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