Unfortunately, the VW brand wasn't associated with luxury vehicles, and the "volks" weren't prepared to pay $75000 for a VW, regardless of the technical advances the car may have offered. Nevertheless, not all was lost. It's apparent that the R&D performed on the concept was considered in the design of other VW and Audi vehicles.
So I think it's fair to say VW didn't copy "whatever is out there"; instead, it remained true to its innovative traditions and continued to inspire other manufacturers.
Thanks for a great publication. I look forward to having one of my Dubs grace its cover one day.
Jose Melendez
Long Branch, NJ
Diversity 1
To all the people who whine about their favorite cars not being featured in the magazine (et 3/09), please feel free to drink a big mug of "shut the F up" and realize it's not all about you. I think the mag is going in a good direction, with diverse cars and better tech articles.
This isn't a VW-only magazine. So to all you whiners, go cry some place. Buy a Mustang and read 5.0 or some other one brand-only 'zine. That's my opinion.
David Malesky
Coopersburg, PA
Letter of the Month
Sock Mystery
I've been enjoying your magazine for years and would like to have an article in one of your issues one day. I have a pretty interesting story you can write about...
To begin, I have an E46 M3 in Alpine white with lots of tasteful mods including BBS rims, supercharger, GTR carbon hood, CSL carbon trunk, etc.
A friend and I installed the supercharger and finally had it running after countless errors in tuning and fixing EML and check engine lights, etc. We couldn't find an intake filter but were very anxious to drive the car, so we decided to temporarily clamp a sock (yes, a sock) to the piping.
After the first test run, we popped the hood and realized the sock was no longer in place. But we figured it fell off on the street, so at 2am we went up and down the street looking for the sock. Little did we know the sock had been sucked in and had bent the blades on the 'charger.
For about a month, the car hadn't been boosting. We tried many things to rectify it but never understood the problem until we took it to local BMW tuning shop, RMS. Even they had difficulty identifying the problem until eventually, Osh, the owner of RMS said, "it's as if there's a cloth stuck in the system somewhere." And that's when I mentioned, "oh wait... there might be a sock in there!"
So now we'll replace the Rotrex blower with an ASA, steam-clean the kit and see what happens. Hopefully, it will be over the 400whp!
Armand Wassilian
Los Angeles, CA
Congratulations to Armand for being selected as our Letter of the Month with his cautionary tale... As LOTM, we're sending him a T-shirt from Dub Korps. Check out the website at www.dubkorps.com and choose any of the ultra-cool designs, which include plenty of retro-style VAG-themed goodness.