Vanagonland
Soon after moving to Missoula, I was told on an ACVW forum that Missoula is a "bus town". Not quite--but it is without a doubt one of America's great Vanagon towns. These boxy crates are positively rife around here. I don't know much about them other than they were air-cooled between 1980 and 1983 1/2, and water cooled thereafter. Yes, VW made the switch from air- to water-cooled in the middle of the model year. Those wacky Germans. They stopped making them in 1991, and just like that, VW's long history of rear-engined vehicles died with a whimper. (At least you can still get a car with its engine at the proper end if you buy a Porsche.) I can't tell these things apart as far as model years go, so you can just pick your favorite year from the '80s (or very early '90s) and pretend they're all from then.
Westfalia outfitted Vanagons as campers too.
I'm kind of glad they didn't color-coordinate the poptops and the bodies back in the bay window days. I'm kind of not glad they didn't put wipers on the rear windows back in the bay window days.
I lied, sort of, when I said I couldn't tell Vanagons apart by year. I (think I) know this much: if they have round headlights like this one (trust me) they are an '85 or earlier. Sometimes I wish I lived in the possible world where bay window rear hatches were as enormous as Vanagon ones.
Even though s/he's legally a resident of the Centennial State, I put this Westy here because I'm a sucker for just about any automobile that's painted white. By the time this van found its way to this side of the Atlantic they were selling a pitiful 6000 or so Vanagons a year. VW had such a severe midlife crisis/identity problem in the '80s that by 1991 or '92 they very nearly stopped selling cars in the US altogether.
I was on a stroll, thinking about doing some hate, when I saw the sticker (poster?) in the rear window of this van. Whew! Disaster averted! If only people everywhere would just print up and post this mandate--the world's problems would be solved. Am I right or what?
It's inexcusable that we've neglected to show this silver Vanagon on the blog before. The omission is inexcusable because this is easily Ludwig's closest VW neighbor, sitting across and down the alley no more than 15 yards from him. I like to imagine that they have pleasant but shouted conversations in German all day long (they'd have to shout because their backs are usually toward one another).
Westfalia outfitted Vanagons as campers too.
I'm kind of glad they didn't color-coordinate the poptops and the bodies back in the bay window days. I'm kind of not glad they didn't put wipers on the rear windows back in the bay window days.
I lied, sort of, when I said I couldn't tell Vanagons apart by year. I (think I) know this much: if they have round headlights like this one (trust me) they are an '85 or earlier. Sometimes I wish I lived in the possible world where bay window rear hatches were as enormous as Vanagon ones.
Even though s/he's legally a resident of the Centennial State, I put this Westy here because I'm a sucker for just about any automobile that's painted white. By the time this van found its way to this side of the Atlantic they were selling a pitiful 6000 or so Vanagons a year. VW had such a severe midlife crisis/identity problem in the '80s that by 1991 or '92 they very nearly stopped selling cars in the US altogether.
I was on a stroll, thinking about doing some hate, when I saw the sticker (poster?) in the rear window of this van. Whew! Disaster averted! If only people everywhere would just print up and post this mandate--the world's problems would be solved. Am I right or what?
It's inexcusable that we've neglected to show this silver Vanagon on the blog before. The omission is inexcusable because this is easily Ludwig's closest VW neighbor, sitting across and down the alley no more than 15 yards from him. I like to imagine that they have pleasant but shouted conversations in German all day long (they'd have to shout because their backs are usually toward one another).
5 comments:
Missoulaneous -- I love it! In our possible-world, we play the old "punch buggy" or "bizz" car game, but with Vanagons. Every time we see one on the road, we yell out "Vanagon"!! Eliana and I pronounce the word Vanagon differently too ... where is the proper syllabic emphasis in this non-Websterian word?
I saw Ludwig's 'twin' in town the other day. It said, "hi".
edvm:
You must've gotten in on that post before I changed the title! Weird.
We idiosyncratically pronounce it "VAN-a-gone", in honor of an ACVW mechanic (Metric Motors, Winside Nebraska) I dealt with back in high school who always said it that way.
nk:
Melissa wonders if the one you saw in Lincoln was Ludwig's evil twin. I wonder if Ludwig isn't the evil twin to the one you saw in Lincoln.
Alright,
Mitch.
I am starting to fall for the early Vanagons, mainly because of their original paint choices! Bright oranges, light blues. Wonderfully awful! That's the only way I can tell them apart from the later ones quickly...
And, you failed to mention the best known Vanagon ever. TC's Island Hopper ride in Magnum P.I. (another great paint job!)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3188/2536932171_3a70a6a25c.jpg?v=0
TC's Vanagon is totally awesome. I don't remember it on the show, but I never really watched it either.
I like certain Vanagons a lot too. We saw a nice one the other day, and I commented to Melissa that it was a great color--metallic blue--when I noticed it was a Synchro. Drool.
Alright,
Mitch.
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