short comment ..
I defenitly don't think Vanagons should be called  a 'Bus'

the older ones really are VW Buses ....and look like a rear engine school
bus even ..
but not Vanagons.
they're Vanagons here..
and if they have to be T3's or T25's in other places...fine,
but Vanagon is a fine term for them, perhaps not for Double Cab Syncro's say
..
but for regular Vanagons ..
westy's and 7 passenger ones etc..they're Vanagons to me.

little known but early Honda Civic station wagons ..
some of those were called Wagovans...pretty sure, Don't think I dreamed it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Loren Busch" <starwagen@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: Friday: Is it a Van or what?

> RE: What is 'It'?
> You are going to get a lot of responses to you question and they are going
> to vary a lot.  But having come into the VW community (alternate spelling:
> Cult) late in life I've listened to a lot of VW people talk about their
> vehicles in many different terms.  I've arrived at a couple of labels that
> seem to be appropriate.  For the early VW Transporters, they are Buses.
> They have earned that distinct and venerable title.  If differentiating
> within various versions from over the years 'Splittie' or 'Bay' pins them
> down a little tighter as to the vintage.  Then adding 'Camper' or Westy or
> Westfalia further defines things.  For the Vanagon I've adopted the
> generic
> 'Van', not Bus.  I think Bus should be reserved for the pre Vanagon VW
> Transporters. BTW, Transporter is the more official VW label for the
> Buses,
> Vanagons, Eurovans, etc.  As for the Eurovans they are just that, Eurovan
> or
> Eurovan Camper when I talk about them.
> And then there is the often confused designations of 'Transporter' and
> 'Type'.  For VW all Buses and their descendent's are 'Type 2' or
> Transporters.  But within  the Transporter line there are T2s (
> 'Transporter
> 2's' , Buses), T3s (Vanagons), T4s (Eurovans) and now the T5.  And to
> further confuse everything the Vanagon name was only used in North
> America,
> VW put other labels on the Transporter 3 in other parts of the world.  And
> then in the UK, what we call the Vanagon is often referred to as a T25
> after
> the '25' in the VIN number.
> Is their a 'Right Way' to refer to our Vanagons? I don't think so except
> maybe as 'My Money Pit'.