Date:         Sun, 15 Dec 1996 00:48:19 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Rick Gordon <rickgo@halcyon.com>
Subject:      Re: 97 EV's

>Date:         Wed, 11 Dec 96 10:33:35 EST
>From: hal <HDROTH@brownvm.brown.edu>
>To: vanagon@lenti
>Subject: Re: 97 EV's
>Message-ID: <9612111540.AA12594@lenti.med.umn.edu>
>
>
> The sporadic sightings and information about 97 EV's suggests that they
>have already been imported, at least in a few places. As I recall, they
>have been examined in North Carolina, Missouri (Bap?), and Seattle (Rick
>Gordon). My local dealer says there are no plans to bring them in here
>until at least next spring and that they haven't even gone into production
>yet in Germany. He was told that at a New England regional sales meeting.
>This does not seem to jibe with the above info. Are the ones people have
>seen only Winnebagos? That could explain it. Or perhaps they're doing test
>marketing in places where they think they'll sell. Also Rick Gordon mentioned
>seeing tests of traction control. Where Rick? Could you give more details?
>

Rick's been offline helping his wife deliver their new baby girl!
Everyone's fine, healthy, fed, and tired and I'm finally getting around to
reading the accumulated email.

Anyway: the tests I saw on Traction Control was published in the Seattle
Times, about a month or two ago. The article was talking explicitly about
some new
BMW car with this technology, but my auto-geek friend said it's been talked
about for awhile. Basically they use the ABS sensors to determine when a
wheel has started spinning, then apply the brake to that wheel to force
energy
transfer to the other wheel. I don't have any more details. I'll ask my
friend if he knows of other sources.

As for seeing the things here - I haven't actually gotten out to the dealer
since they came in (with the birth announcement above you can understand
why!)
I was merely quoting an ad I saw in the Seattle Times saying that they had
3 '95s starting at $27.5K and 2 '97s starting at $34.5K.
The Times is on the Web (maybe seattle-times.com?) so that ad may still be
present. Based on that evidence, I'd say your dealer is out of the loop
somewhere. But do note that the port of entry is in North Carolina I think,
and the things are popular enough in Seattle that they may have managed to
get an early allocation. This may explain their early presence in two
places so far apart!

-rick

Rick Gordon
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
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rickgo@halcyon.com
http://www.halcyon.com/rickgo/
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