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I can't see the fascination with them - my dad had one (Not a split screen though) back in the early 80s when they were still cheap transport & not enthusiasts gold. They're truly horrible unreliable things & horrific to drive. Always a laugh sitting in a carpark cooking beans on toast in it though!

I can't agree MORE!
Eddrick you're the MAN!
Maybe only 20% of people here[USA] collect them or whatever...the rest are dirty hippies who live in the stupid things! yuck!
Every time I see one[VW2 hippie bus] going like 2mph on ANY HILL...I pull along side them and LOL!!
Then I go blasting around them in my SCCA full-race engined Datsun 240Z!

I really like the BUG[baja Bugs kick butt!], maybe the carmen-gorilla, Wolf-special Golf, and the ROCCO'.
The rest of the whole VW old school 'LOVE' thing is beyond me?!

If Tamiya wanted to bring out some VW that is 100% COOL....lets see the 1981 VW GOLF[#25]!
They brought back its 'sister car', the RE5 TURBO[#26]....?

The reason for their lack of speed is the engine is fitted with a governor that kicks in around 70mph & kills the ignition - we found that out trying to overtake a tipper truck, downhill with rapidly approaching oncoming traffic. Thought my time was up... Don't like front wheel drives - got some photos here of a 3.5T VW transporter that decided to stop steering & fall over doing 23mph whilst I was driving it - ruined my evening having to get heavy recovery out to fish it out of the field & back on its wheels! Don't mind accidents if you're asking for it, but that was just uncalled for! Stick with RWD or 4x4, at least you get some warning before they try to injure you

eddrick wrote:

... Don't like front wheel drives - got some photos here of a 3.5T VW transporter that decided to stop steering & fall over doing 23mph whilst I was driving it - ruined my evening having to get heavy recovery out to fish it out of the field & back on its wheels! Don't mind accidents if you're asking for it, but that was just uncalled for! Stick with RWD or 4x4, at least you get some warning before they try to injure you

I don't think all FWDs are bad - mk1 & 2 Astra, mk2 & mk3 Cavalier, and to a lesser extent the mk.1 Golf were all good - predictable understeer & massive (but still predictable) lift off oversteer ...

That said, the list of FWD cars I have 1st have experience of & I'd rate as awful is a lot longer - all Clios, all FWD Escorts & Fiestas, mk.1 Focus, Vectras, mk.3 & onwards Astras, mk.2 & onwards Golfs, all Polos ...

My Renault 12 was ok apart from how many G's you could pull going round corners (enough for you feet to get pulled off the pedals) & changing lanes (first time I pulled on to a motorway, I got G-lock (vision turns black & white & tunnels in from the edges) & shot across 3 lanes of traffic

Worst FWD car though has to be the Citroen ZX ... the Pug XUD (1.9 turbo diesel) engine is great ... but the "passive rear wheel steering" really isn't. This was a "feature" they must have dreamed up when they discovered the rear suspension was really bendy - let me tell you, this feature becomes very active when you hit a bump mid bend - I slammed my ZX into some Armco square on going 50mph - disregarding the seatbelt shaped bruises, I was the only thing forward of the B-pillars that was useable afterwards... which is actually pretty good for a Citroen - I wouldn't want to do that in a 2CV or BX

RWD though ... I think the biggest problem is that the "edge" is a lot sharper - in an FWD car, generally they start to understeer (& you can back off a bit) & that zone between no problem & a crash is quite wide. RWD though, the limit is much later, & the zone is a lot, lot narrower - most people only discover the limit by exceeding it & crashing.

The roundabout at the bottom of the hill I live on is a real problem - people (including me, but it was in a poverty spec Sierra, so what do you expect ) are always swapping ends & sliding off into the ditch going south off the roundabout, coming into it from the west people are always running into each other, going east of the roundabout a popular trick is to loose it going in a straight line & hit something coming the other way and/or a tree... but going north off the roundabout is known locally as "BMW corner". 10 years ago there was a small verge, a footpath & another meter wide verge, then a fence, backed by about 6 metres of woodland (or a overgrown hedge, call it what you will). Now the fence has gone, along with about 5 metres worth of the trees, thanks to the number of RWD cars intent on demolition. "BMW corner" is something of a misnomer btw - it's not the corner that's the problem, it's the straight bit after it - and it's not just BMW drivers that bin it there, but AFAIK no FWD car has ever crashed there.

TBH I've been typing so long I can no longer remember the point I was trying to make

Yeah, I wouldn't say all FWDs are bad (Or all RWDs or 4x4s are good) - I think a lot of it depends on suspension type & weight distribution. The banger boys all love cavaliers & mondeos (Mainly cos they keep going with the back end ripped off....), stock lads like sierras & granadas (Ideal for getting around ovals sideways). In my experience, anything with wishbones up front & live axle at the rear are just unpredictable, live axles front & rear wander about. Only sensible option is 4 wheel independent, eg 2CVs... they stick like mooky to a doily! Y'know what, after mentioning how bad Fiestas were, I seem to remember my XR2 being the only car type transport I ever actually got on with... oh yeah, that WAS fun! (Mind you, so was my kingcab, despite all the incidents). I agree about the whole BMW thing - what IS wrong with the people that drive them?