>My my, you like to argue - but let's call it 'lively debate' which I love.
>
>As a life long US citizen and aware of vw's here for some 40 years or
>so.............I'm pretty sure it's officially called the Bus.....like on
>the cover of the Owner's Manual.

Well, I have a Bentley Bay manual with Bus on the cover. But that's
not a VW publication and is a US one.

>I have various vw books I could look at,
>but I do believe in the US it's an official model name.  '78 Bus' ....for
>example. Or 1978 VW Bus.

It's badge-engineering, except that there's no badge.
Name-engineering? All markets but one get one name, the other (North
America) gets a diffrent one. Just to make things confusing.

>Oh, right, well the VW Bus would also be an icon of the hippy ear, for sure

Like Fat Freddy's van?

>In Japan they call what we call a Eurovan and Vanagon.  How odd.  Ever hear
>of a Honda Civic Wagovan ? ....yup, Honda's combination of 'van' and
>'wagon.'

Yeah, I hated that when I saw them in Canada. How do they come up
with such awful names for the NA market? The rest of the world,
including Japan, knows them as Civic Shuttle, 1980s & early-90s
generations... available with 4WD. And rust. Which comes standard
with every Honda car... road salt not needed. How can a company that
makes the best bikes (and has done since the 60s) gets it so wrong
with its cars?

>They sure didn't have vanagons or even vw's in japan when I lived there,
>except military personnel.

There's business restoring Splits and selling them in Japan.

>I'm sorry, I was being US-centric.  Though I was responding to people on the
>list that are US based.

I forgive you. It is, after all, a US-based list.

>They don't call them Vanagons in The Fatherland do they ???
>T3's I believe.

T3 or "Bulli". They call all rear-engined Transporters there "Bulli".

>What a fascinating discussion!  I went out to the garage to gaze at
>the word "Vanagon" emblazoned on the rear hatch of my Vanagon.  Even
>dug in the glove box to get the owner's manual out; the front cover
>says it's a "Vanagon/Transporter".  I'm having a difficult time
>finding any documentation that says it's a "bus", but I guess "bus"
>must be a generic term for anything that can carry multiple
>passengers.  Would this also include mini-vans?

A Transporter is hardly a minivan. That's the territory of the likes
of the Subaru Domingo, Daihatsu Hijet, Suzuki Carry and Mitsubishi
L100. Which could carry 6 passengers if they had 6 seats.

>And so far everyone seems to have missed the UK 'Type 25' for a
>Vanagon/Transporter/Caravelle.  From the '25' in the VIN

The Poms get it wrong... they call then "T25s". Of course there's no
such thing. They mix-up T with Type.

>And.......for the first time in about 25 years they are calling what was the
>Golf, the Rabbit, which is what it was originally called here, the first
>front wheel drive water cooled vw little econ-boxes.  Now they're Rabbits
>again like they should be called !
>
>I think there's even a cute Rabbit logo on the back of the car. Saw one down
>at my vw dealer today.

Bet that's a Polo...
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut
� Opinions stated are mine, not those of Otago University
"There is water at the bottom of the ocean"  - Talking Heads