Date:         Thu, 01 Feb 96 07:16:00 EST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Kramer, James" <kramja@edc1.edc.ca>
Subject:      1979 Westfalia questions


I've been lurking for almost a year now and am still in search of that
elusive Westy. I've come across someone who has a '79 for sale, although
some of its features struck me as odd  (all descriptions are based on a
phone call-I haven't seen it yet). Mind you, I've only admired Westies from
afar so my knowledge is admittedly not so deep. Maybe someone has some
comments:

1) It's an automatic (?!) I've had lots of Ghias and know the
semi-automatics weren't as bad as some made them out to be, but I've never
even heard of a Westy automatic - at least not on the 2nd generation
models. Is this common? Is it very desirable or undesirable? How much of a
nightmare is it when something goes wrong?

2) It has no stove and just a cooler box (i.e. no fridge). I always assumed
a Westy meant the whole camping interior, but seemingly there were some
models more deluxe than others. Is it safe to assume that a deluxe interior
could be easily transplanted if I could find one?

3) The guy seemed pretty forthright about descriptions, and mentioned that
a pipe was missing from the sink(?), making it a pretty useless sink. Would 
I be wrong assuming this should be easy to replace?

4) The colour of this particular beast is orange, which is odd since I
always thought 79s only came in that dark manure brown colour. Then again,
this is a Canadian bus so maybe we had different colour choices up here?

Any and all insights appreciated, especially good rationales arguing for a
purchase.