Where are they all and why are all busses so hard to find in the middle of the US. I am still a Vanagon owner wannabe. I recently saw one on eBay that was located in my hometown. But I am now unemployed and couldn't buy if I wanted to. I have only seen a few vanagons around town and only one or two eurovans. Just a frydaye rant. Dave.

> [Original Message]
> From: Joel Walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Date: 2/13/2004 7:44:15 PM
> Subject: Re: How many Vanagons
>
> > Does anybody know how many vanagons there are in the US. It's a
> finite
> > number and everytime somebody parts one out, it's one less. I'm
> just
> > curious how many there are. I'm amazed at how many businesses are
> > flourishing by keeping these things alive.
>
> i got these numbers from some book about vw buses, a long time ago ...
>
> 1980 - 150,805
> 1981 - 175,000
> 1982 - 175,000
> 1983 - 175,000
> 1984 - 175,000
> 1985 - 175,000
> 1986 - 175,000
> 1987 - 175,000
> 1988 - 175,000
> 1989 - 175,000
> 1990 - 175,000
> 1991 - 20,000
> total 1,920,805
>
> now, those mighty peculiarly even numbers of 175,000 are from the VIN
> range given in the book for that year. same with the very low 20,000
> for 1991 ... but remember, the Eurovan was also being produced in 1991
> in Germany. so that's probably about right. i'm not sure, however, if
> that number includes the Vanagons/T3s that were 'assembled' in Graz,
> Austria, as many 1991 models were. if your 1991 VIN has MG in it, it
> was assembled in Graz on the Syncro assembly line, even though it's
> not a syncro.
> and 175,000 might just be the limit of the assembly line in Hannover
> for a whole year (11 months, actually. as i recall, they kinda shut
> down the line for a month while most of Germany went on vacation, and
> some poor folks had to stay and get the assembly line set up for the
> next year's model).
> i do recall that the Millionth (1,000,000) Vanagon rolled off the line
> in 1985 ...and the six-millionth(6,000,000) Type 2 (all buses from
> 1950 to ...)
> in 1986. the 175,000 per year agrees with one article i have that
> claims "nearly 500 Vanagons are produced every day ...", assuming
> you're running seven days a week (479/day).
>
> imported into the U.S. ...
> 1980 - 14,101
> 1981 - 11,479
> 1982 - 13,234
> 1983 - 14,695
> 1984 - 21,352
> 1985 - 12,303
> 1986 - 13,475
> 1987 - 9,401
> 1988 - 4,555
> 1989 - 4,466
> 1990 - 8,057 (vw had announced they PLANNED to sell 10,000 Vanagons
> that year)
> 1991 - ?,???
> total 127,118+
>
> the book didn't have any numbers for 1991. assuming that it was
> roughly the same as for the previous years, percentage-wise, it would
> likely be a very low 6 percent of total vanagon output or about 1,150
> total. that seems way low to me, however, based on what i saw at the
> dealers around that year. maybe the u.s. got a much higher percentage?
> so the total of all vanagons imported into the u.s. from 1980 to 1991
> would be in the neighborhood of 130,000 to 135,000. that would be my
> guess.
>
> so that means each one of us (with only one vanagon) has 0.0007692
> percent of all the vanagons ever sold in the u.s.!!!! :)
>
> unca joel

David King
dlking58@earthlink.net
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