A Rant About Lowering Buses

Of all the modifications I see these air-cooled VWs subjected to, the one I do not understand in the slightest is lowering.

The safety issue strikes me immediately. The impact from the merest fender-bender is going right to your knees with a lowered bus. The post-1973 buses have some pretty good frame design to help reduce the chances of getting paralyzed, but if you lower the thing, you are utterly exposed. Those headlamp buckets will clang your knees at 15mph into a car's rear bumper.

The handling issue is the next obvious disaster. With seriously reduced suspension travel, you lose traction over irregularities, and you certainly lose the factory designed roll centers and proper transfer in corners. Although there may be a subjective feeling of "tighter cornering" these cars need the rear to list to unload the front inside so you get proper initial understeer to warn you that the limits are coming.

And finally, the aesthetics are incomprehensible to me. These cars were all about amazing utility with the sure-footness of a mountain goat. A lowered bus looks like it has been crippled.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but the above arguments seem more persuasive than " it looks cool." Opinions or flames. . . welcome. Colin ( amskeptic over at the forums)

If you drive a bug or bus, you're not overly concerned about crashworthiness anyway (driving defensively is about all you can do to preserve yourself). Economy is not really an issue anymore either because there are lots of modern cars that are as/more economical. Practicality and comfort - also not issues. Which gets back to looks and the general enjoyment of the things; it's not meant to be understood.

Colin, your opinion is very wellcome (same as all). Personally, the completeness of my legs is one the issues that concerns me more and one of the reasons why I still doubt seriously about getting a bus (well, and the money too :) ). But I must admit that a lowered ratlook bus looks absolutely awesome to me! I think I would like to have one, even if it was just to ride at 20kph in urban areas. Veeeeeery sloooooowly cruising and chilling in summer.......

Ant

Colin wrote in this friggin' newsgroup:

I'll go one further and question why people customize cars at all. I mean, what attracts you to a car in the first place? And what makes someone with no background in automotive design think that they can "improve" upon years of research and development by dropping, slamming, raising, covering in purple metalic paint or laying down yards of shag carpeting and velour upholstery? Its like that crazy Arab guy a few years or is it decades back who painted all the classical statues in his front yard. A classic look always last forever, contemparary taste seldom does. But with that said a man's car is his car to modify and destroy if he wants. But it doesn't mean I got to like it either.

--Dan E

upholstery? Its

.............This is what's behind the current popularity of the resto-custom look. Minor improvements in appearance without the tasteless excesses of some of the more radical fads of the past. For one thing, a lot of customizers have learned the hard way that what looks cool to them can ruin the market value of a bug when it's time to sell. As a buyer, I keep walking when I see one piece door windows, a hacked up dash, a loud metallic paint job of some hot color that God never duplicated in nature, etc. I was talking on the phone once to a seller and when he told me that the suicide doors weren't latching just right, I knew that I wasn't going to waste my time driving to his place to see if I was interested in his 'mildly' customized bug.

On Sun, 1 Feb 2004 15:40:23 -0500, "Tim Rogers" ran around screaming and yelling:

i sure as heck wouldn't pass up a good split window because it had one piece windows... JT

Lately I'm hearing a lot of rants about customizing cars. If people don't like their hair, they change it, if they don't like their house, they change it, some even change their wifes or husbands when they don't like them! So far so good, but when someone thinks about changing his/her car, then storm arrives! Personally I find two reason to justify customization. One is that technology has advanced since then, and some parts of these cars can be upgraded/improved, specially if we are talking about daily drivers. The second is that VW wasn't precisely thinking about me when they designed their vehicules (nobody asked me what colors where nice), but on the average driver, therefore there might be features and details that I don't like about them.

Anyway, I prefer the classic look and I hate bugs with flashy colors and furry steering wheels. But I defend the right of customizing your bug.

Ant

Braukuche wrote in this friggin' newsgroup:

On 01 Feb 2004 23:02:59 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnojunk (Braukuche) ran around screaming and yelling:

i guess what "chaffs" my hide is when people whine and bitch about people doing to their cars as they wish, because they are really just saying they are jealous that they missed out on that low mileage barn find....if you people want the rare, low mileage finds, you can't sit around a message board and wait for them to drop into your driveway...if you want to insure there will be plenty of "unmolested" cars for *you* in the future(which is the root of the whining) then buy em up now...other than that you are destined to be "chaffed" time and time again...i'd bet my last dollar that if John Henry himself posted saying he was gonna suicide door his oval, then graft in a ragtop, install a narrowed beam, narrow the rear torsions and diagonal arms, install ten inch wide wheels to go with the brand new turbo charged 2276 cc racing engine, that *NONE* of the whiners would say a word....jealousy is very hard to hide and we see it in alot of posts on this board.. JT

As for crash-worthiness - I think all bus-drivers have nightmares about bridge abuttments, oncoming 'sleeper' crossing over, etcetera. That said, the second year I had Bussy, we took a one-year-old Ford Probe head-on, centered on the steering wheel! We had come to a full stop before impact. Granted, the Probe was not travelling very fast, maybe 15mph at impact. Bussy was knocked backwards about 3 feet (I was standing on the brake pedal.) The probe bounced off us and went backwards across 3 lanes of traffic, ending up on the far shoulder.

It was just dark enough that I could not see down to where my feet were, and un-secured camping gear was heaped all around me. I dug myself clear enough to try to wiggle my feet. It seemed like they were working okay, but then I remembered that sometimes people with severed limbs have phantom feeling as if they were still there! I moved enough stuff to get turned around sideways in the seat and felt with my hands down to where my feet should be. They were there and in good operating condition, totally unharmed! I made my way out the sliding door (driver's door was jammed) and went to check on my adversary.

The driver of the Probe was home on leave from the military. Her car was less than a year old. She was hauled away to the hospital in an ambulance and spent the night there, moderately banged up. Her car was a total. It did just what it was supposed to; it collapsed from the windshield forward. Collapsed as effectively as if she'd hit a concrete wall! She was unable to get enough out of the insurance company to even finish paying off the car.

I drove Bussy home. I had to loosen the brake rod 1/8" because the rear brakes were dragging. I did not drive it at night because the left side headlight was pointing to the moon. I got enough in the insurance settlement to restore the bus to pre-accident plus enough to do a complete paint job, and enough on top of that to buy a new engine and radio for my RC boat (another $1000!)

One of my side-interests when I was visiting the wrecking yards a lot was to analyze the wreckage. Bay-window busses commonly were bashed in as much as 8 - 10 inches, seldom even a foot at point of impact with whatever it was. Some were bashed in everywhere about 8 inches, showing they had rolled, maybe end-oed, but every one I ever saw had plenty of room to live. Certainly a large part of this is due to the fact that if it was too bad, the wrecking yard wouldn't bid on it! I saw a Voyervan (Dodge / Chrys.) that had nothing ahead of the driver's seat cushion - it was all peeled to the right, and I saw a late model Vanagon with nothing ahead of the driver's seat - the passenger side being pretty much intact - it was peeled upward, I believe.

The idea is to not hit or be hit, but it is truly amazing what these busses can take and how well they can accommodate their passengers in as much as providing room to live.

Upset handling? Anything you might do can make a major difference in handling! I once raised the back end two inches and it cornered beautifully! The suspension kept topping out and I wore out a set of CV joints in 3 months! It was also even more top-heavy, but that really has never been an issue. It showed me that if I had lowered the front end a tad, I could have improved handling substantially. The other handling issue I have currently. Taking the bus motor out and all it's associated tin, adding the Subaru motor and extending the front bumper 8" and adding the

4-Runner radiator and fake spare tire - It moved the CG forward by about 100 pounds. That is enough to make it squirrelly where it used to ride rail-like. It's been really freaky learning how to handle this. It gets too far too suddenly now (of course the doubled horsepower and torque have nothing to do with that!) By moving my toolbox back under the bed and adding the massive group 27 battery, I have gotten most of it back!

well, "it looks cool" isn't very persuasive because it doesn't look cool

- it looks idiotic and unattractive. Of course, there are people who thought Full House and that Erkel program were cool and I'm sure they also think lowered buses are cool, but...

That's another thing that confuses me. If you like old VWs, cool. If you don't, cool. I can understand making some performance improvements, but butchering the basic appearance is wacky - why get an ACVW if you don't like ACVWs and just want to make it look like it isn't an ACVW? Buying an ACVW just so that you can make it not look like an ACVW - you can pay less and buy a Honda with AC, better mileage, and quieter driving and it won't look like an ACVW from the start. I know Shaggie finally realized that while bugs are pretty darned cool, if you want a Jeep then you should buy a Jeep - that's good sense.

The folk who try to make bugs look like Rolls Royces from the front are particularly confounding...

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 04:18:13 GMT, mez ran around screaming and yelling:

i don't agree with this statement....vw's are very capable off road, and a load of fun...are they a jeep? heck no...will they do everything a jeep may do? heck no....will they do more than you expect them to? without a doubt...i will build another baja some day, they are great. i however probably won't own another jeep....(for all around fun and joy of use the vw beat the crap out of the jeep, hands down) JT

Joey Tribiani wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Well said Joey!!

I have made my bug mine. I bought it, cut it, dechromed it, put a 64 body on a 68 chasis, custom colored it, welded it, adjusted it, built it, raised it, lowered it, modified it, tinted the windows, one pieced windowed it and replaced most of the dash pieces with wood which I made in my wood shop.

Do I expect a fortune for it when or if I ever sell it? Nope! I have done what I wanted to it and have kept an Aircooled VW on the street and have gotten many complements from people for what I have done. Not bragging, just saying to each his own. I would not butcher a rare VW or a well preserved super beetle. I like them all, custom to bone stock. If we all had to be the same, it would be a gray world. I look upon my bug as a opportunity to express my vision on a canvas that would other wise still be rusting away in the junk yard.

Like me or hate me, you can bash me when I show up to hack your bug instead of my own.

On 2 Feb 2004 15:26:14 GMT, TerryB ran around screaming and yelling:

one of the best relationships you can have is one with the machine that *you* built yourself....been there...miss them... JT

I agree with Joey on this. I love all ACVW's. Bug,bus,t3,t4 whatever. They are all great and I have owned at least 14 of various kinds over the years. Mostly Beetles. I also love the Baja in looks and performance. I would much rather beat around the bush in my Baja that a huge Jeep again. Much more fun. I have gone hunting in a few bugs and it is nice, but the Baja style is better adapted to the off road areas. As for customized rigs, That is not for me to judge. It is not my car. Most I like, but some not, but everyone has a right to do what they want with what they own. Just because someone does not agree with how they do it, it does not give them the right to condemn them. Freedom of choice and expression folks.

YCVWMV

-- the Grokdoc Tom Malmevik all that groks is god

67 Baja "marti" one of many owned...*8-}