Date:         Fri, 26 Mar 1999 23:39:34 -0800
Reply-To:     John Scheckel <jscheckel@NUTLEY.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Scheckel <jscheckel@NUTLEY.COM>
Organization: John Scheckel Architect
Subject:      99 Ev
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Well folks.  Given the current talk about EV's I though I'd share my
recent endeavor into the purchase of one.
After 'enjoying' my van for several years I had the great idea of
looking into purchasing the 99 EV after seeing one on a car carrier on
the NJ turnpike.  I live in northern NJ.  I checked a few dealers and
discovered that they are available here.  As previously posted by others
they are available in 3 basic models, MV which has the rear facing
seats, table and bed, MV weekender which has the above plus the pop up
top (sleeps 2 on top), and the standard van which has 3 rows of seats
for 7 people.  They are pricey, 30K for the MV, 36K for the weekender.
No dealer had one that they would let me drive as they were all special
ordered.  The catch was I wanted a manual trans.  I was told that none
were available, so I checked this out with an overseas realative who
could look into EV's in Europe.  My hopes for an EV with a manual trans
direct from Germany have been squashed as the 'offical word' has it that
you can't have it your way, only ours.  I'm crushed.  What follows is
the direct message from Germany about the availability of getting one
there and shippping it here, with or without a manual trans.

I just got a call from the director of public relations at VW in
Wolfsburg. It
was an unusually friendly conversation, during which he told me that a)
the
Sharan is made in Portugal, not Spain, b) he had never heard of the Euro
Van,
c) it definitely isn't made in Europe, d) the American (North & South)
VWcorporations act completely indepentdently of VW Int'l - including
product
design, marketing and often production (the Jetta and the Audi A4 are
made
over here) - e) even those few things they do make to US specs over here
can't
be bought here, f) anything with US specs is cheaper over there (I know
this
is a contradiction to e), but it is exactly what he said) and g) the
besthe
could offer in that class is the Sharan or the Opel equivalent which is
cheaper. We talked about the possibility of putting a manual
transmission in the EV,
and he said that since automatics dominate the American market, he
doubted
that the American VW would put in a manual, though he could definitely
understand preferring a manual (but then, what German wouldn't?). Like I
said, it was really friendly and all, but the bottom line remains the
same. At least now it's very official.

Maybe the info will at least make an interesting post to your VW chat
group.



I hope this helps any one out there who may be looking onto the same
thing.  I'm sticking with my van for many more happy years.

Happy motoring; John S