Re [3?] European delivery (yes, should be offtopic-

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Some of the discussion about European delivery programs seems to assume that
the cost savings on the car, versus the cost of the same car at home, was the
main point. It may have been, for some people, at some times, but in many, if
not most, cases that was a tangential issue. In many cases the economics of a
desired enjoyable vacation was the primary consideration. Most people enjoy
vacations, and many enjoy travel; academics, both junior faculty and the less
impoverished students, often have ten weeks available in one lump, and others
get by with two weeks. Either way you could accept the restrictions (or
blessings, if you think that way) of tour busses, or buy a Eurrailpass and
limit yourself to train schedules and in-town hotels, or buy a bicycle and do
the hostel bit, or rent a car for substantial daily charges, or take the time
and the risk of buying a pig-in-a-poke used car in an unfamiliar local market.
I've had friends who did that, bought a cheap beater in Amsterdam and
abandoned it when they caught the plane back, but it takes an adventuresome
soul to go touring in unfamiliar lands with an untested clunker, and you are
still out the price of the car. If you are spending thousands of dollars to
spend ten days in Euphoria you don't want to spend three days buying a car, a
week stuck where it broke down, and two days trying to sell the beast to an
arriving sucker. If, on the other hand, you might be about ready for a new
car, or might think you could sell a newish one when you got home, saving the
hassles and costs of renting adds appreciably to whatever savings there had
been in ordering European delivery. Generally any savings was icing on the
cake; frugality was not the usual main point of a vacation.

Not that frugality didn't help; in the fifties, and in many other periods, the
cheapest destination of the cheapest airline was Luxembourg, on Icelandic, and
if you look on the map for where that is in relation to the VW plant you will
have a clue to one reason why pop-top campers were so popular with young
faculty couples with three kids still in diapers.

Enjoy, while you can-

John H.
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