also recall vanagons were made for more countries than just the USA,
yeah, i know, its hard to imagine ;)

nothing much different about the euro models apart from a couple a
tad more powerful, and a few a little less powerful.

that being said, I do agree that there is a sweet spot in velocity,
where the chassis seems to be happy and the wind noise subdued, for
me its around 45-50. Those gently rolling hills and sweeping curve
secondary roads are so nice in a vanagon.

alistair

On 13-Apr-10, at 11:43 AM, Rob wrote:

At  4/13/2010 11:05 AM, John Rodgers wrote:
> Congrats on your new powerplant. Having that extra power means a
> lot at
> times.
>
> Keep in mind however, that our vans were designed for a period when in
> the USA speed limits were much lower  and best performance in the vans
> was at 55 mph.

"Much lower"? When are you talking about?

My first van was a 59 and it was slow on hills and merging but as I
recall the speed limit was 65mph on the freeway, it was always in the
slow lane. My 71 was better but still slow on hills and merging but
could almost keep up with the faster traffic . My 86 was slow on long
hills and merging but when I came back from Hawaii in 1990 it did
just fine on the freeways at 65mph (the national speed limit was 55
when I went to Hawaii and that was gone when I came back <VBG>), the
drive from SanFran to Chicago was a good one. My 84 Westy with more
power (130hp) drives like a regular car, it merges, does hills and
cruises with everyone else.

In my experience a Vanagon does just fine at the legal speeds if the
engine can push it that fast.

Rob

becida@comcast.net
Western Washington State, USA