Hot damn Bryan, good going !!!
Not a waste of time at all !
The other thing I would add is that it needs to be less car-like minivan and
more 'sport truck' with some ground clearance like a Vanagon has. 

And more square too, like a vanagon and less swoopy like a car.  I realized
that what a vanagon is , is that it's a 'sporty non-quite-truck' and that's
why they can do everything.
Haul stuff, camp in it, go to out of the way places, and so forth. 
Let's do indeed all send in our penny's worth of opinions.

You know..........they have SO MUCH right here within their grasp.......and
they keep just blowing it.  Maybe we CAN get them to listen !
Shoot, I'd even pay $ 5K extra for what we want as a new vehicle, so the
production numbers can be fewer. 
'price' is not what really drives discerning people, it's VALUE.
They have traditionally tried to offer that, and they have a unique niche in
the world that they would be wise to not let go of.
Good work again man,
I will write them for sure.
And try not to make it rambling or too long - lol !
But just 'to the point.' 
I am impressed dude.
I don't say that very often either.
Scott
www.turbovans.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
BJ Feddish
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 1:59 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Letter to VW

(Sorry for the double post)

I just got off the phone today with VW rep at headquarters. I had written a
letter to the president about my current thoughts on status of VW's vans or
the lack thereof.  To summarize I spent a few moments mentioning how a
diesel van would make the vehicle stand out in a crowd of other mini-vans
and my main topic was building an inexpensive camper for sale here in the
US. Basically I said I believed there was still a market for an inexpensive
camper van. The key word there was inexpensive so the entry level model for
less than $30K would just have a pop-top, some cabinet and a cooler.  VW had
a problem in the 1960's and that was demand far outstripped supply for their
inexpensive campers. I told them wouldn't it be great to have that problem
again.

Without going into to much detail about the letter we spoke for about a half
an hour. She said that Mr. Jacoby got the letter and gave it to her to call
me. She was not able to "confirm or deny" any items but she said the
microbus concept is not dead and ideas for campers are still being
discussed. Other interiors for the Routan are on the table too.  Anyway,
after writing the letter I thought I'd get some canned response with $2 off
an oil change but she seemed genuinely concerned with what current VW owners
have to say.  Without being outright I could tell she agreed with me when I
said VW's marketing was inadequate. She even agreed that she had never seen
a Eurovan commercial either.  She told me that it would be great if other
current VW owners would write in and tell them what their ideas were.

Here is the address I used.

Stefan Jacoby, CEO
Volkswagen of America, Inc.
3800 Hamlin Rd.
Auburn Hills, MI 48326

If you can write a friendly letter, that would be great. If you think I'm
crazy and wasting my time then that's fine too. I just think it's better
than doing nothing and just complaining to each other on these lists.

Thanks,
Bryan