Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 15:24 -0600 (MDT)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: BLAINE_BACHMAN%PL-01M3@ccmail.plk.af.mil
Subject: Re: Reimo Tents - Part 2
Folks-
I've had a few early replies on my suggestion that interested
"listies" might want to go together and order a shipment of tents from
Reimo in Germany. There have been some questions on the part of the
respondents, and it turns out that if there's any hope of doing this
properly, I have a few questions of my own that need to be answered.
First some information. For those with web access, the tents in
question are on the "Westfalia Tent Page" at:
http://www.supernet.net/~jclark/vw/tents.html
For the rest of you, I don't know for sure if I can help, but if
there's enough interest among the e-mail only crowd, maybe there's a
way.
BTW, "Inner sleep cabin" is an option which divides the inside into a
sleeping area and a "hallway" which leads to the van.
Prices are listed in German Marks, and be advised that the shipping
cost information given is for in-Germany shipment only. Today's
published exchange rate is $1.00 US = 1.75 Deutchmarks. As a basic
rule of thumb, I'd suggest you use 1.5 marks to the dollar which will
give some padding if the prices have gone up. Of course, all this
information is just for planning purposes - the real reckoning will
come later (if at all).
In theory, we should be able to avoid approximately 15% of the cost
which is the rough amount of the "value added" tax; export sales are
usually exempted from this, however there may be a US Customs duty to
pay which might eat up some or most of this possible savings. There's
also the unknown cost of shipping - most of the tents weigh around 50
lbs each; shipment would likely be by surface, eliminating any
reasonable chance that the tents would arrive in time for this
summer's festivities.
Oh, by the way, if I and the guy in Germany understood each other
correctly, the tents pretty much DON'T have floors, but they could be
custom made with them; I guess that's the difference between here and
Europe - we seem to have a lot more pesky critters.
Finally, the person I spoke to indicated that they were aware of the
second hand Internet exposure they were getting, probably as a result
of J. Clark's page. They indicated that they were hoping to get a US
distributor lined up, perhaps by the end of July (any of you Bus
suppliers interested/involved). 'Course with my experience as a
"consumer" of European model trains, I'm sure another middleman will
contribute to the cost.
Now, for the sake of discussion, anyone who's interested (and can get
at the web page):
Which tent are you interested in? (I'm partial to the "Mistral")
And to estimate the logistics required to distribute any eventual
order to the lucky recipients:
What state do you live in? (I'm in New Mexico)
Finally, my internet/e-mail access is at work, so I will not be
answering much more e-mail between now and next Monday.
-Blaine
(my i-mail address is: blaineoftrains@earthling.net)