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Date:         Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:20:46 +0000
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Steven J. Hughes" <Steven.J.Hughes-2@tc.umn.edu>
Subject:      Re: VANAGON digest 1311

> Topic No. 24 > > Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 00:11:44 -0800 > From: mholser@Adobe.COM (Malcolm Holser) > To: vanagon@lenti, scr@pacifier.com > Subject: Re: Eurovans, Winnebago and Westfalia > Message-ID: <199703290811.AAA12974@natasha.> > > There certainly were EuroVan Westfalia Weekenders sold. Saw one today > on 101 south of San Jose, the lovely bright Teal color. I remember > three lined up, their tops popped a few months ago at the VW dealer on > Steven's Creek in San Jose (all used ones). Now they have four Winnebagoes, > all white and boring. The Westies say "Westfalia" on the roofs, but the > roof is really thin, and goes the full length of the van. > > No bright Teal any more... > > malcolm > > ------------------------------

We've seen a few EV Westie Weekenders here in St. Paul, too.

The poptop on a Westie EV has to go the whole length of the roof because the roof is not as long as that on a Vannagon. While the vehicles are about the same length, the EV has a snout--one disadvantage of having an engine in front!

When we lived in Vancouver in 1995 we saw scads of EV Westies with _full_ camping gear. I friend of ours let us borrow his '92 DIESEL powered EV Westie. I think it had 78 hp! It was slow going over the mountians... We loved it, and would have bought one ourselves (gas powered, though) except that we were moving back to the US, buying a house, and getting married.

BTW, It was also interesting to see that VWoC provided a _much_ wider selection of vehicles than VWoA--ever seen an EV with double doors instead of a gate? Or for that matter, a diesel EV?

We were told that VWoA did not import any of the full Westfalia EV conversions because of the exchange rate, and the VW of Canada was discontinuing their Westie conversions for the same reason. Too bad! We'd love to own one, but the Winnebago EV conversion is on a 16" longer chassis and is just tooooo expensive for our blood. Also not as versatile. A standard chassis EV Westie would be just great for driving to work with and then heading out of town, but the 16" longer Winnebago is just too big to be a general purpose vehicle (at least for us--my wife would refuse to drive it), and too expensive to have as a second recreation-only vehicle.

Guess we'll stay with the '87 Westie (which we sold our '93 EV to get!) forever....

Does VWoA Care? Or was the Westie market so small that they could walk away from it? Do they think people who would have bought an EV Westie will buy a bigger, more expensive EV Winnebago?

Personally, I think they blew it.

-Steve


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