Well, Joel, I, too have an '88 Vanagon, and last winter, aka "the winter from
hell", it was the most stable vehicle in the fleet (the fleet consisting
of an '86 GTI and a '93 Chrysler Behemoth Van leased as a commuter van for
me and several unfortunates who commute way too far each day to work). There
was a 10 day period where much of NJ was covered with solid ice - the GTI
skidded, the Chrysler Behemoth slipped and slid, but the magic bus did just
fine. Got up hills, got through snow, got around spinning 4WD Jeeps (!), and
got me where I was going. It had new (in Nov '93) Pirelli all-season radials
but other than that, it's standard issue VW.

Now, wind - that's another subject. We're talking about the big red sail,
right? Any time they say "trailer/motorcycle ban on the NJ Turnpike", I
*know* the magic bus ain't gonna be wanting to behave itself over 50 mph.
I recall following my thesis advisor (I think he had a '76 bus at the time)
thru Canada on a group trip to Nova Scotia, we were in a boring level 
section of highway in New Brunswick, where there would be ~1/2 mile of 
mature forested land followed by ~1/2 mile of cleared land, every time we
came out of the protection of the trees his bus blew over into the oncoming
lane of traffic - seeing this, I was able to slow down and merely swerve a 
lot, but it was quite the phenomenon to watch.

MB
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       _ @ _~@                                     Mary W. Baum
      ^\<;^\<,`                                    Merck Research Laboratories
     (*)%---%(*)                                   Mary_Baum@merck.com

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"Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug"       - M. Knopfler