At 5:58 PM 2/28/98, Alan Pickersgill wrote:

> the Eurovan will return with a V-6 engine and
>will be big enough to out-carry the stretched versions of various minivan
>competitors. It will be able to haul seven adults and hold their luggage
>behind the third seat. The Eurovan will also be packaged to go after the
>upscale end of the business, a position that will likely result in a basic
>sticker price in excess of $40,000. "

        Let's see 40K $CDN is ~30K $US...I'd expect  a fully optioned
        (PS/PB/PM/PL/PW/2xAC/auto/ABS/SRS...), luxury appointed (power
        moonroof, power seats, killer soundsystem w/CD changer, leather,
        power outlets fore and aft, two cupholders per seating position,
        reversible center row seats...) 8 passenger LWB with sliding doors
        on both sides for that much.

        Somehow I don't think this is the direction of thinking at VW...
        instead, they'll play the game of comparing the interior volume
        of the EV to the popular minivans and conclude that the ~200cubic
        feet of the EV does, indeed, "out-carry" the competition.

        It's too bad that the marketing folks have *never* understood that
        the EV's interior volume results from a higher floor-to-ceiling
        dimension which is as usable by human cargo as a legroom. I, like
        many Vanagon owners, flirted with the idea of replacing one or both
        of our Vanagons with an EV back in '92/'93 until we tested an MV
        interior against our Carat and discovered that the EV's interior
        was longitudionally challenged and that what was marginal legroom
        for the simultaneous occupation of the rear-facing theater seat
        and rearbench had become downright a fight for toespace at floor
        level and a kneebumper higher up!

        Now Mercedes seems to have gotten closer to the ideal with the
        lux version(s) of the V-class front drive T4-equivalent...

      OLTECO                         Ari Ollikainen
      P.O. BOX 3688                  Networking Technology and Architecture
      Stanford, CA                   Ari@OLTECO.com
      94309-3688                     415.517.3519