Date:         Tue, 11 Jun 1996 12:38:03 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dworkin@ari.net (H Steven Dolan)
Subject:      Re: Cost of Hobbies

Ladies, Gentlesirs, (and the rest of you, too)

Given that VW's are too perfect to require justification, and that I
remember at least one publication that awarded them the honor of being "the
quintesence of automobile-ness", I feel I must relate a recent conversation
that I was involved in.  My boss (an otherwise intelligent woman) recently
purchase a generic mini-van for $20K.  While she was boasting its size (7
passengers), its economy (20mpg), and its power (2L inline 4); I was doing a
quick addition in my head and realized that in my (aproximately {I'm NOT
telling}) 20 years of car buying I still had not spent $10K on buying autos
(mostly VW's). Also, at this stage my car was comparable to hers in every
respect except that I wasn't paying $300+ per month.  Indeed, the '78 I had
at that time had cost me $400 purchase + ~600 to get it running.

At the same time, through the years, innumerable people have admired my VW's
and each has expressed a desire to own one.  My universal response is, "Have
you ever changed your own oil?"  The major virtue of VW's to me is that I
*can* fix them, the major drawback is that I must.  All in all, I figure
that the average joe is probably spending at least $300.00 per month on
payments and repairs, so any car that consumes less than $3,600 per year is
a bargain.  Over 20 years, I figure that I am ~$40,000 ahead of that.  Thus
not only is this "hobby" more fun than is legal in many states, it is also
lucrative as all get out.


                        So there......
                           H Steven Dolan
                           Alexandria, VA

'73 FI'ed Westy