Just got back from a trip from Alabama to New York and back, visiting
daughter, moving nephew from Brooklyn to Manhattan, delivering folks to
Islip airport, running all over manhattan and back. 2200 miles in all,
including duty as a NY taxi every day, as well as three round trips to
brooklyn via the BQE to move my nephew to the upper west side. The van
was loaded to the roof for the three moving trips, hauling four full
rooms of furniture and clothes.

I took five relatives with me to NY and back in my Red 1990 Carat,
which ticked over 197000 on the trip (without so much as a valve job
ever done to it). We drove 65-70 up and back. I couldn't detect that it
used any oil at all.

All passengers agreed it was the best vehicle they ever saw for travel.
The occupants were 13, 14, 54, 53 and 83. We got a "sharp" sign (raised
index and little finger) from the kids skateboarding as I pushed
through the crowd at Union Square.   At my daughter's apartment, when I
parked underground I was offered $2500 cash on the spot for my van
(turned down of course), another time (different attendee) I heard the
story of the beloved '84 Vanagon left behind in Jamaica when the owner
came to new york. The next morning when I presented my parking receipt,
the attendant asked me "are you the guy with the red van?" Word had
spread. He asked me where he could go online to find one and I wrote
down the URL for this list.

I saw a nice westy parked behind a restaurant on the way up, and saw a
gold westy on Washington Square over the weekend in front of an NYU
dorm, and one or two around town in NY traffic. Other than that, only a
few eurovans all the way up and back, but no vanagons on the road.

Jim