Date:         Tue, 31 Aug 1999 08:15:44 EDT
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Re: Diesel group purchase looking? Not Bill Gates--
Comments: To: firestream@mindspring.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

The problem with Bill's car was that there were only a very small number of
these made in the world (I think 5 or 10) and they cost $500,000 each.  When
he brought this one over the US DOT said we have no crash test data on this
car we need to perform a crash test on it and then we can allow you to
register it :)  So you see the catch 22 he was in.  Probably wasn't another
car available for him to buy as a crash tester and also who wants to crash
test a $500,000 car.  I'm surprized Bill didn't just get some serious
simulation program written up that was so good that they didn't have to crash
test it (coming in the future I am sure).

As for what we are doing, the vans were sold over here at the same time so I
am pretty hopeful that the crash test data we already have on these would be
sufficient.
Ken Wilford
Van-Again
John 3:16