>On 3/25/06, Sam P <samhp@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  I have been reading with interest the discussion of the  "
>>Carat/GL " offered for sale on Ebay. I got so interested that I
>>took a look at the vehicles being offered for sale on ebay with the
>>description of Vanagon Carat. The one with a wheelchair lift seems
>>to have the official Carat designation on the rear hatch.
>>Interesting because my van is identical to that one but it has the
>>GL designation on the hatch. My van also had a wheelchair lift
>>installed when I bought it , which has since been removed, and the
>>two jump seats re-installed. It also has the identical three
>>switches for controlling the wheel chair lift next to the license
>>plate in the rear panel. Mine is also automatic and now has a
>>whopping 28,000 miles on the odometer. When I bought it I assumed,
>>with no input from anyone else, that it was a Carat because of the
>>fiberglass bumper and side trim and the side table with the two
>>jump seats. So what do I have, and ...does it really matter ??  SAM
>
>Sam,
>
>Never put a Carat at the end of the stick then dangle it in front of
>the Vanagon listmembers. They'll be chasing it all day long.
>
>Contrary to what has been mentioned here, the are some Carats running
>around w/o all the power options. It starts to sound to me like the
>Wolfsburg and Champagne Edition ploy where VW labeled certain models
>and added a few extra goodies to differentiate it from the regular GL
>sometime in the middle of the production year. I have certainly seen a
>number of Carats side by side with a GL of the same vintage where the
>GL was better equipped than the Carat.

A REAL Carat has black plastic panels under the tailgate...
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut