> > I understand the European taxes based on HP and the high cost of fuel
> > ($4.75 a gallon when I lived in Italy) but why or why or why did VW think
> > these little teeny-tiny engines were enough to push around a whole van?
>
>I thought, at least in the UK, the tax was based on displacement, not
>horsepower?  (Hence the cotinued popularity of the 1600cc engine in the
>70s vans, when only the 1976cc was available in the U.S.)

I was always confused by this. I think in Italy they had a chart that said
if you had a certain engine size then you have a certain taxable horsepower
and thus the high output 2.0 liter engines they had in some of the cars.

This was in '91 through '94 that I lived there - things could certainly be
different now.

Ciao!

Chris Mills
Cookeville, Tennessee
ICQ# 5944649