In a message Markus writes:

>I was going over a guy's '67 Deluxe (a future list member??) and he had
belly
>pans on it.
>
>Does anyone know if these belly pans have any structural purpose or are
>they just to keep the floor healthy?

Being the original owner of a '67 Deluxe myself (over 307K miles), I have
this "belly pan".  Seems only the Deluxes in '67 came with this and what I
heard back then was that it was to help decrease noise in the passenger
compartment on the top 'o the line models.  Kombis (even with sunroofs) &
Pickups continued to have exposed underframes and some Westy's have the pan,
some don't.  Makes it a bitch to replace the center heater tube tho'.
 Although I could never substantiate it, I'm sure it added to the structural
integrity. Strange thing is, they only did it for one year and all models
68-on have the underframes exposed again.  So much for consistentcy :)

Jim / BusBoys@aol.com