I have heard, but can't confirm, that Daimler has divested itself of Westfalia.� Perhaps Karl can confirm this since he recently spent some time with the Westfalia people.

Also, there is more to the recent huge upswing in VW stock price, that ties into the fact that "20% of Volkswagen shares are owned by the German Federal State of Lower Saxony".� Because so much of the stock is off the market, the short sellers have trouble covering positions and that drives the price of the shares out of proportion to their true market value.

Cheers, Anthony
'89 Syncro GL (Hidalgo)

--- On Thu, 10/30/08, The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM> wrote:
From: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject: Re: Mention of the Possible New MicroBus
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 9:07 AM

> Of course where does that leave Westfalia who wants to
> convert an American van to a camper? Hmmm, do they start with
> Routan then re-tool for the bigger and better Microbus, wait
> for the Microbus and forget the Routan,  hmmmm.

Westfalia is now a subsidiary of Daimler Benz, and their ties to Volkswagen
are nowhere near what they once were.  VW now designs and builds their own
T5 camper in Germany.  I would assume that if a U.S. made VW camper ever
became a reality, it would be outfitted either by VW themselves or a U.S.
company.

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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