Possibly simple avoidance of waste, depending
on HOW the strestch is made.
There used to be people making longer and shorter VW bus
conversions.
They would take a VW bus, and cut it off right behind the
side freight
doors. And they would take another one and cut it off
right in front of
the freight doors. Then swap the pieces and weld them
together. The
result was one very short VW bus without side freight
doors, and one long
one with two sets of freight doors.
In 1968, the bus went from swinging double doors on the
side to a sliding
side door. Stretch conversions after that were rare.
Also, an
international trade battle involving chickens resulting in
punitive
tarrifs on small "commercial" vehicles, so ones without
windows, and even
the VW pickup truck became rare.
Prior to 1968, the VW bus had a double door on the side.
Model 211 was
windowless. Model 215 (rare) had double doors on both
sides. Other
variants included special delivery models with the side
doors on the
"wrong" side, sliding doors before 1968, swinging doors
after 1968, ones
with little skylights above the doors, etc. If you look
at the placement
of the hinges of the freight door, early ones had high
upper hinges, and
in about 1959? the upper hinge was moved down almost to
the belt ridge.
The conversion required lengthening, or shortening, the
gearshift linkage,
the throttle cable, brake lines, wiring, the heater
control cables and
ducts, etc.
For ones from the 1950s, shoke cable, and cable operated
control for the
gas tank valve. VW NEVER had a "reserve" tank; instead,
the control
(which was cable operated in the bus) controlled the
pickup valve at the
bottom of the tank, which normally took gas a little bit
above the bottom.
In "RESERVE" position, it sucked the crud from the bottom
of the tank.
Once they put in a gas gauge (1961?), they discontinued
the two position
valve. But the fitting was the same, so it was possible
to put the
two position valve on a tank with guage sender, to have a
tank with BOTH
guage and valve.
I've seen a Honda N600 shortened, and another modified for
a single rear
wheel, and one with a wooden flatbed. But, I never saw a
lengthened one.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred
cisin@...
On Tue, 3 Aug 2021, David Russel wrote:
> No photos but back in school days, late 1960’s, there
was a guy who
> took the opposite approach and shortened at least 1
corvair by a
> decent amount. It had no trouble popping wheelies.
>
> David
