<VV> FCs at Cruise - no Corvair

[levair at aol.com]

Maybe FCs in the US  would have been more popular if we were more 
crowded.

Warren

-----Original Message-----
From: Dale Dewald <dkdewald at pasty.net>
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Sent: Tue, Apr 13, 2010 11:26 pm
Subject: Re: <VV> FCs at Cruise - no Corvair

At 21:57 4/13/2010 -0400, Warren wrote:

>We just got back from a cruise in the Bahamas. We took an excursion
>into Nassau.
>    Interesting to me were the taxis used there on the increditably 
tight
>streets.
>The streets were full of Forward Control (Cab Forward) minivans
>produced by Mitsubishi and Toyota.
>Just when we thought that the famous/infamoous Corvair truck design was
>gone it's everywhere in the Bahamas.
>   Of couse the engines are all watercooled nad under the front seats.

Oh yes, in areas of the world without such onerous crash standards FC 
vans
are quite common.

When we travelled to east-central Siberia to adopt our son, Alex, we 
were
chaffered all about in two Korean-built FC passenger vans.  The most
interesting was a SsamYong, that was similar in styling to the current
Sprinter but with a very long front overhang.  It had a Mercedes 2.3L
turbodiesel mated to a 5-speed manual front drive transaxle. The empty
weight distribution of this van must have been 75/25, but it had rear 
air
springs that adjusted to load.  The other minivan was built by KIA and
looked like a 3/4-sized Dodge B-van, except with the front axle 
displaced
back to make it FC. The drive train was pretty much conventional; 2.5L
turbodiesel and 5-speed driving a rear live axle.

The most unique and interesting FC's we encountered in Russia were the
UAZ-452 4X4 passenger and cargo vans. Their styling was similar to a 
bread
loaf on wheels.  These had a 2.4L 4-cylinder gasoline engine located up
front like the Ford Econoline and Dodge A100.  We saw many of these (as
they were still in production in 2001) but never had a chance to ride 
in one.

Dale Dewald
Hancock, MI

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