At 03:30 PM 6/14/2013, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
>could have had them in our Vanagons, not that they would help much without
>the front crumple zone they also invented in 1951 (the defunct Eurovan had

Hey!  We have a crumple zone!  It's part of the very serious
engineering that went into making the T3 one of the safest passenger
vehicles in the (real) world, up there in Saab and Volvo territory I believe.

It's only about three inches deep (behind the cosmetic bumper) and of
course it's very stiff compared to one in a vehicle that's got lots
of room to work with.  And it's backed up by VWAG's earnest attempt
to build a mountain between you and what you hit.  Once the crumple
zone is used up the T3 attempts (quite successfully) to reflect
collision energy back in the direction it came from.

If you search around on YouTube there's a factory video somewhere
discussing the engineering that went into crash-proofing the T3 and
LT which is very similar but larger.  The internal crash-proofing
structure is almost the same.

All the above is a major reason I wouldn't own a T2, because they
haven't got it.

Yours,
David