Re: [T3] Factory air.

[Simon Glen <simonglen@bigpond.com>]

Dear Jim,

I have a sales brochure printed in Germany and published by Volkswagen AG and
dated 6/72 entitled "VWs mit Klima-Anlage".  It is written in three languages:
German, English, French and Spanish.  It spends a page on the air-conditioning
option for each of the 1200/1300 Beetle, the 1302/Cabriolet Beetle, the Karmann
Ghia, the Type 3 1600, the 411, the Type 2 Microbus (Station Wagon in USA) and
the Type 2 Westfalia.  For each there is a photo of the air-conditioned car's
dashboard and a full description including placement of the condensor, vents and
compressor.

On the second last page it states:  "The VW air conditioners are manufactured by
VPC, a subsidiary company of Volkswagen of America Inc.  Their headquarters are
in Fort Worth in Texas.  ... The VW air conditioners are installed in the
Volkswagen factory."

This brochure in those four different languages was intended for the
non-American market; i.e. places like Germany, France, Spain and in Africa and
the Middle East.  Indeed, I obtained my brochure from the VW distributor in
Nigeria in West Africa where dealers at the time were urging customers to
specify air conditioning for their VWs if they picked them up tax-free in Europe
prior to shipping them home overseas.  In other words, the air conditioning was
installed by Volkswagen in their German factories.

I currently have a 1992 VW T3 Transporter (Type 25 Vanagon) which has air
conditioning in it but this was installed by the dealer here in Ausstralia.
And, in this case, frankly, they butchered the car in order to fit the system.
I would hope that the German factory-installed air conditioning of Type 3s was
not done by butchers.  I would also hope that even if US vehicles had their air
conditoning installed by the VW-owned VPC in Fort Worth, Texas, they did not
butcher the cars because, afterall they designed the system.  But, I could be
wrong!  In fact, I have only once seen a Type 3 with air conditoning and that
was in Nigeria.  It worked very well but i didn't have a close examination of
it.

Regards,

Simon Glen
Toowoomba, Australia.

Jim Adney wrote:

> On 20 Feb 2001, at 22:25, PunkDork55@aol.com wrote:
>
> > Does anybody know anything about T3's that came with factory air
> > conditioning?  I was looking at a 69 fastback with air and i wanted to know
> > if anyone had any info about this.
>
> There was no FACTORY air. It was all dealer installed. It requires
> butchering the engine cooling air intake and adds an extra heat load
> to the engine. It is something to be avoided.
>
> -
> *******************************
> Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org
> Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> *******************************
>
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