| paul123 |
Ananova:
A Blast from the PAST!!!!!!!
VW to create 1,500 jobs to build 'hippy vans'
Volkswagen says it has decided to manufacture its new retro-style Microbus minivan at its existing factory in Hannover, Germany, creating 1,500 jobs.
It's thought production will begin at the end of 2004 at the earliest, and the model will not be launched before 2005, sources said.
The other candidate for the project was VW's factory in Palmela, Portugal, where it currently produces the Sharan people carrier.
VW management reportedly delayed the decision on where the vehicle would be produced due to the uncertain state of the US automobile market - the main market envisaged for the Microbus - and due to worries over whether VW could sell 100,000 units.
The company's Hannover works will now undergo a "major restructuring," VW's new chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder said.
The Minivan is being styled to resemble the cult VW 'hippy vans' of the 1960's, following on from the success of the New Beetle and BMW's new Mini.
Mr Pischetsrieder also gave an update on the outlook for this year, saying that although there are no signs of a recovery in the German car market the company still expects to produce 5 million cars this year.
According to the VDA automotive industry association, Germany's passenger car registrations in May fell 14% year-on-year to 284,000 units. |
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| paul123 |
The Microbus is coming back!
Get ready for a trip back to the '60s: The VW Microbus is slated to make a 2005 comeback. Groovy!
May 20, 2003: 2:13 PM EDT
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN/Money Staff writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Volkswagen announced this summer that it will introduce a modernized version of the German carmaker's pre-minivan minivan in 2005. The original went into production in the early 1950s but really made a splash in the fab 1960s.
Modernizing is probably a good thing here. As wonderfully appealing as the old Microbus was, it had, shall we say, some issues. Even though I was, still a child when my family ditched ours, I remember the Microbus experience well. A few e-mails among my older siblings, who actually spent time in the driver's seat while I was kicking around on one of the removable bench seats in the back, filled in some of the memorable details I wasn't able to experience.
My parents bought the Microbus in 1965, about a year after I was born. Being that I was the last of my parents' 11 children, the Sunday drive to church had gotten a little snug in Mom's VW Beetle. (If my father had been the churchgoing type, they probably would have sprung for the Microbus a good bit sooner.)
The writer (seated in his mother's lap) with his family and their VW Microbus, Wallingford, Pa., 1966.
I mostly remember the sound of the bus's overworked air-cooled engine and the view of tree branches whizzing by those narrow rectangular windows around the roof. Also, there was that special plastic-and-oil interior smell that VW should have trademarked in those years.
A few years after we got the bus my older brother, Mark, finally replaced the big, leaky cloth-and-vinyl sunroof with a sheet of Plexiglas and lots of caulking. All the older kids who actually drove it recall the distinctly insufficient engine, the commuter bus-style handling characteristics, and the long stick shift that was like swishing a mop around in a bucket. But, though it limped along at the end with its windshield wipers tied together and its VW nose emblem pocked with rust, it lasted us about a decade. Not a bad showing for a motor vehicle of the time.
The new version
VW Microbus concept
The new Microbus, introduced as a concept vehicle in January 2001, has a few features that should make it a big improvement over the earlier versions. The concept Microbus, for example, features a 230 horsepower V6 engine and a 5-speed automatic with Tiptronic clutchless shifting.
Then there's the onboard movie multiplex theater, something I definitely would have remembered if we'd had it in ours. The concept has a 7-inch screen in the center console and four other 8-inch screens in the backs of the first and second-row seats. The middle seats can swivel for a better view of a DVD/game console screen. Folded down, the back of the DVD/game screen functions as a small table.
The interior of VW Microbus concept. The lever is the Tiptronic shifter.
The seats on the concept are covered in "Cotton White" nappa leather. The second row is a pair of bucket seats that swivel 180 degrees, while the third row is a bench with two contoured seats. Both the second and third rows can be moved around on a set of rails.
The floor is covered with a semitransparent rubber mat that's easily removed so it can be hosed off. Underneath that is an aluminum floor. The combination adds a glow to the inside of the Microbus concept. Our old bus also had removable rubber flooring and, underneath that, the floor was semitransparent thanks to a material called rust.
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Instead of opening outward, as the doors on our old Microbus did, the concept vehicle has powered sliding doors. And the door handles retract via remote control so they stick out only when you need them.
It remains to be seen, of course, which of the fancy features from the concept vehicle will make it to the final production version. Not everything the VW design team in California came up with will likely be practical for a real production vehicle. If anyone's asking, I'd like to see the old round headlights come back. It's just not a Microbus without them. The DVD screen that doubles as a snack tray is a nice touch, though. |
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| paul123 |
June 12, 2002
New VW Microbus production returns to Hanover, Germany
VW Microbus Pickup Concept
Hanover, Germany - Volkswagen AG announced that the VW Microbus concept, which debuted at the Detroit auto show in January, 2001, will be built at its commercial vehicle plant in Hanover, Germany - the same city where the original microbus was produced in 1950. The new Microbus is expected to go on sale in 2005.
Dr. Bernd Pischetsrieder, Chairman of the Board of Management Volkswagen AG, said: "Having reviewed the economic requirements for building the Microbus in the Group, we have come to the conclusion that, based on the 5000 x 5000 project and a thorough restructuring of the Hanover site, the conditions are good." Under this concept, Volkswagen AG will employ a total of 5,000 persons for a gross wage of DM 5,000 (CAN $3,706). 1500 new jobs will be created in Hanover - the other 3500 positions were already announced for the Wolfsburg plant last year.
The Hanover plant was competing with a plant in Palmela, Portugal for Microbus production. "The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles team put up a marvellous fight to win this vehicle," said Gnter Lenz, Chairman of the Works Council Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. "All our efforts have been rewarded. The decision shows that the Hanover site can hold its own in an international comparison of VW locations." German autoworkers union, IG Metall, also praised VW for keeping jobs in Germany.
"With the Microbus, a legend begun some 50 years ago when the first VW bus left the production line here is now returning to Hanover," said Dr. Pischetsrieder. "The VW bus was never just a means of transport, it has always been an emotive cult object. The public's reaction at motor shows combined with the findings of market studies already show us that the Microbus design has a spontaneous appeal, and that the vehicle will follow in the footsteps of its successful predecessor."
The Microbus concept was designed in Volkswagen's Simi Valley, California design studio. Concepts include a minivan, a pickup, and a camper version. The concept has a 231 horsepower 3.2 litre V6 mounted transversely in the front and front-wheel-drive. It features 20 inch alloy wheels and 245/45R 20 tires. |
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| paul123 |
Volkswagen | Microbus
An alternative title for this article could have been, "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same." What today's automakers now tout as the next Big Thing has been around for at least 50 years: so-called "crossover" or multiple-use vehicles. Similarly, while most people credit Chrysler Corporation for inventing the modern, multi-tasking minivan in 1984, there were many that predated the original Caravan/Voyager-but only one that started it all. "The More Things Change..." certainly worked for Volkswagen with the New Beetle a few years back. Could there be more mileage left in this whole Retro/Heritage Design thing?
The answer appears to be yes.
VW's Microbus Concept stole the hearts of everyone who attended the North American International Auto Show in Detroit-not an easy task, as nearly every manufacturer served up at least one "world debut" concept vehicle. But the talk of the show floor, among media and the public alike, was, "Didja see that totally cool VW bus?!"
The original VW bus stands as the '60s' ultimate surf wagon, so it's only appropriate that any new version be designed at VW/Audi's Southern California advance product studio-also the birthplace of the New Beetle. The team's aim was to create another Volkswagen original, not just a copy of the old style. Observers and critics, ourselves included, think they've succeeded and failed. For the Microbus concept is a little of both.
About the same overall size as the current, boxy EuroVan (including its hallmark short front and rear overhangs), the Microbus measures 15.5 ft long. Yet its sleek, modern design tends more toward high-tech flexible transport of the future, than utilitarian-though-huggable Microbus of the past. Xenon headlamps housed in angular rectangles combine with the Micro's high, blunt nose, large VW badge, two-tone paint, and stylized grille to make a face one might see in modern Japanimation-and some don't find it particularly cute. In profile, the clean, restrained lines and bold wheel arches (with show-car-size 20-in. wheels) work well to give it a modern and stable-looking stance. Around back, the front-end styling theme is repeated, where it looks more plausible and attractive.
The ultra-stylized interior shown here is multi-configurable and looks like it might have been plucked out of the business-class section of a passenger jet. However, it's already being revised and softened for its next showing. One VW AG executive reportedly admitted that the seats look like dental chairs; so new, warmer fabrics and colors are being chosen. The third-row seat also will be updated with a new design that's fully removable through the one-piece rear hatch, further meeting today's market needs and expectations. As long as VW's at the drawing board, it should seriously consider adding the ubiquitous third-row seat that folds flat into the floor. We've dinged other manufacturers for not applying this concept to ground-up minivan designs or redesigns, as people hate hauling the third-row seat out, or being caught without it.
Electronically activated dual sliding doors (no double swinging doors as in the original) open to reveal second-row seats that rotate 180Β‘ to face both directions. A multitude of seating configurations and video monitors treat all passengers to the latest modes of entertainment and information technology. For example, the screen that presents itself from the third-row bench seat (again, not unlike a tray table in business class) can be used either as a small table when left flat or a two-sided video monitor when fully extended.
Not a likely production version of the Micro's macro interior, but it does offer clues where Volkswagen intends to go: giant rear hatch with a removable third-row seat, multi-configurable second row, and a whole new way to operate the instrument panel. This is not your big brother's '65 Microbus.
The Microbus' front passengers are in control of a very modern, asymmetrical instrument panel with not a single function left untouched by the designers' hands. Smoothly rounded shapes cleverly reinterpret everything from a dash-mounted Tiptronic five-speed automatic gear selector to the seats' disc-controlled adjustments. A rearview camera transmits images to the small monitor in place of a rearview mirror, and the system also provides spoken warnings when parking. The command center appears to be a highly ergonomic layout with both analog and digital readouts, and accommodations for a navigation system and other modern equipment. An MT staffer observed that the packaging and display of the instrument panel looks like one from an MRI machine. We feel the whole controls/instrumentation treatment is among the Microbus' best design elements.
Construction methodology also has been reinterpreted, for example, in the carpetless floor assembly. Volkswagen says the technique corresponds to that of a future-vehicle generation. It's a composite sandwich that uses a semi-transparent urethane sheet molded with a geometric pattern and a sheet of aluminum beneath that shines through-durable and high-tech. |
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| paul123 |
Volkswagen Microbus
The Cool VW Bus Returns
By Erin Riches
Date Posted 05-17-2001
Video highlights of this vehicle
The New Beetle allows us to relive the days of feeling young, politically oppressed and penniless, albeit with modern mechanicals and reliability. Sort of. Today's Beetle isn't priced to accommodate those without some means, even on the used market. And a lot of the people who buy the new bugs know very little about anything that happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nor do they care. You can expect the same from whatever version of the Microbus concept arrives in the United States reconditioned nostalgia for a price.
Like the Bugs, the old VW microbuses attained cult status in the U.S., except that the buses were better you could camp in them, live in them and decorate them with the same care you would an apartment. The first buses, or Transporters, trickled into the U.S. in 1950. Several different models were available, including the microbus (passenger van) and a panel van. Each rear-wheel-drive van came with a two-piece windshield and a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. The buses were completely redesigned for 1968 each model had a one-piece windshield, sliding rear door and a 47-horsepower 1.6-liter engine. A 70-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder was introduced in 1975; this air-cooled powerplant carried over into the third-generation bus, the Vanagon (introduced in 1979).
While the Vanagon was a more modern vehicle it had a fully independent suspension among other things it lacked the visual appeal of its predecessors. A water-cooled, 82-horsepower 1.9-liter four-cylinder arrived in 1983. A more powerful 2.1-liter engine (good for 95 horsepower) replaced this engine in 1986; this was also the first year for fuel injection and the optional Synchro four-wheel-drive system. The Vanagon died out in 1991, though 1990 was its last year in California due to emissions regulations. Its replacement, the front-wheel-drive EuroVan, made it to the U.S. for the 1993 model year. The standard powertrain consisted of a front-mounted, 109-horsepower 2.5-liter inline five connected to a five-speed manual transmission. An autobox and antilock brakes were optional.
The EuroVan was so unpopular with American consumers that only the camper version was available after 1993. An engine more worthy of the van's girth arrived in 1997 when the inline five was switched out for Volkswagen's VR6 powerplant (though it developed only 140 horsepower in the EuroVan). Passenger vans returned for 1999, but the manual transmission did not. Finally in 2001, a 201-horsepower version of the VR6 is available, but the EuroVan still isn't a draw for minivan buyers who can opt for a more family-friendly Honda Odyssey or microbus enthusiasts who can pick up an old, cool bus on the cheap and recondition it to suit.
So the Vanagon and the current EuroVan have never received a warm reception in the American market due to relatively high pricing, weak engine choices, lack of minivan convenience features and rather anonymous styling. Microbus, on the other hand, will prompt droves of people to ditch the airport for a cross-country road trip in a VW van. Or at least, they'll trade in their Explorers.
The product of Volkswagen's Simi Valley, Calif., design studio, the Microbus concept gives buyers just what they want old-world styling touches underpinned by modern-day technology. The van revives the charming stubby nose (branded with a giant VW badge) of the early buses but has a front-mounted engine like the current EuroVan. A deep dash makes this combination possible. Slender A-pillars enhance forward visibility.
The boxy shape of the new Microbus mirrors that of its ancestors, but its dimensions are similar to the EuroVan's. Contemporary xenon headlamps wrap about either corner of the van with a complementary set of taillights on the rear. Sharply creased wheel arches extend from the van's sheet metal and encase aggressive 20-inch tires. The concept also has dual power sliding doors.
The Microbus is significantly more powerful that the current 201-horse EuroVan power comes from a larger 3.2-liter V6 engine that churns out 230 horsepower and 236 foot-pounds of torque (much better for light towing than the EuroVan's 180 ft-lbs) and directs power to the front wheels. This powerplant is coupled to a five-speed automatic transmission with Tiptronic.
Designers wanted to give the van a light, open, airy interior to create a small "biosphere" (the name of the color scheme for the concept bus). To this end, the cabin has generously sized lighting elements and a translucent floor (urethane over aluminum).
The cockpit seems to have been designed with the driver's enjoyment in mind (an idea rather foreign to most production minivans). Instead of being nestled in bezels, round clock-like gauges reach out to the driver. A large central speedometer is tangent to two smaller gauges, presumably some combination of tach, temperature and fuel. The shifter is the most interesting piece of work. Neither steering column-mounted nor floor-mounted, it's fixed to a large aluminum canister than grows out of the dash. It looks weird, but it's positioned such that the driver could relate to the automanual transmission in the Microbus the way she would to one in a Passat. A ceiling-mounted 7-inch LCD monitor takes the place of a rearview mirror and feeds the driver images from a rear-mounted camera. The system provides audible warnings when the van gets too close to an obstacle during parking maneuvers.
The seven-passenger van provides two captain's chairs in the front (leaving an aisle open to the second row), a three-person bench in the second row and a two-person bench in the third row. While minivan buyers often prefer second-row captain's chairs, a second-row bench that can be turned 180 degrees would have definite advantages when you're on a long road trip. The kids can commune in privacy, while you have your own conversation in the front.
Evidently, on-board entertainment was frantically important to Volkswagen's designers. A total of four 7-inch screens are housed in the first- and second- row seat backs. Further, the third row contains an additional apparatus that can be either folded flat to form a conventional table between the rear rows (useful when the second row has been swiveled) or positioned vertically allowing occupants on both benches to view a video display.
The Microbus concept looks nothing like the production minivans currently on the market and, in its current form, it has an overwhelming array of gadgetry. But Jetta and Passat fans have made Volkswagen quite trendy in the States. And the concept van's distinctive rewriting of the old buses should appeal to those who haven't yet had the opportunity to pack their liberal sensibilities into a VW van for a camping trip and to families who have tired of showing up at the mall in a Ford Explorer or Toyota Sienna. A technology-lite version of the production Microbus (whenever it happens) would help ensure that ownership isn't limited to those who can shop in the $30,000-plus bracket.
Care of Edmunds.com |
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| ImOnlyTen |
| Thats quite alot of info... |
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| paul123 |
quote:
Originally posted by ImOnlyTen
Thats quite alot of info...
I try to please. :2: |
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| jswift2000 |
Great. All we need is the 2003 version of hippies and tree huggers. Dont people know the 60's are over?
Great van by the way - kind of cool.
:9: hippies |
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| greatscot |
Great, just what I need, more "Rolls Canhardly's" on the road.
They roll down one side of a hill and can hardly get up the other. Nothing more frustrating that getting stuck behind one of these things from the past. Its like going through a time warp. |
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| Captain MDX |
| Yuck! I hate these vans. Hated it since I was small and now they're making it again. Hate hate hate hate it like hell. But I do like Cadillacs when I was small :D |
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