BRAZIL Outdated minibus still going strong

Volkswagen has no plans to end production of the inexpensive vehicle.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Inside a cavernous Volkswagen factory, there are no high-tech robots to assemble or test new versions of the famed minibuses that carried countless hippies on road trips across America.
The 1,200 vans leaving the carmaker's plant every month get a final quality control check unchanged in decades: Workers slam the doors a few times and use brute strength or worn wooden mallets to shove them into alignment.
Though the van is viewed as an outdated antique in most of the developed world, it is still going strong in Brazil, the only place on the planet where production continues. Volkswagen's Mexican division stopped making the minibus in December, and also produced its last two-door icon, the bug, in July.
Nation's workhorse
Although Volkswagen's Brazilian unions have warned that the sturdy van known here as the Kombi could face a similar fate in a cost-cutting effort, the car maker denies any such plans. And it's hard to imagine South America's largest country without the workhorse vehicle of choice for businesses ranging from tiny startup companies to some of the country's largest corporations.
Brazil's postal service and the country's biggest cigarette maker have massive fleets of delivery service Kombis, and the military uses the vans to transport soldiers.
Across the immense urban sprawl of Sao Paulo, the country's largest city, there are Kombis used as hot dog stands, ambulances and convenience stores. Small building contractors in the ever-expanding city of 18 million use Kombis almost exclusively to transport work crews and haul goods ranging from toilets to windows and bricks.
City officials have limited the use of Kombis as school buses and for short distance public transportation because of safety concerns. And production of the van has declined by a third in the last decade in part because of increased competition.
Business decision
But Volkswagen says it would be a stupid business decision to stop making the Kombi, which was last offered in 1982 in the United States as the Transporter. The main reason: New Kombi panel and passenger vans go for about $9,000. Similar vehicles from other car makers are larger and have creature comforts unavailable with the Kombi -- such as air conditioning -- but almost all cost about twice as much. Although the Kombi's air-cooled, rear-mounted engine lasts only about 56,000 miles, decent rebuilt motors cost about $330, installation included.
"If we stopped producing, we would lose 1,200 sales a month," explained Arthur Levy, a marketing executive with Volkswagen of Brazil. "You just can't get another product at this price."
The factory looks like a Volkswagen van museum, with one Kombi after another slowly making the circuitous assembly line trip. About 95 percent of the vans are painted white, because Brazilian businesses emblazon their Kombis with brightly colored ads, and the moving publicity is easier to see against a white background. Most Kombis are sold domestically, although a few are exported to countries like Ethiopia, Venezuela and Uruguay.
In nearly 50 years of Brazilian Kombi production, the van has hardly changed. Its biggest remake came in 1997, when Volkswagen introduced fuel-injected motors and raised the Kombi's roof four inches to increase cargo capacity.
Street scene
But along Sao Paulo's clogged streets and avenues, Kombis from the 1970s to the 1990s are everywhere, often pieced together with parts from models made in different years.
Near one of the city's biggest subway stations, Piedade Elivira da Silva literally lives in her red and white 1987 Kombi that is also functions as a convenience store, selling commuters candy, cigarettes, lighters, lottery tickets and mixed drinks made with Brazil's fiery cachaca sugarcane liquor.
Speaking over the din of Carnival music blasting from speakers atop the parked van, da Silva said the decision to choose a Kombi was natural. The van cost $1,600, and easily holds all her wares. Repairs are cheap.
"I'm depending on Volkswagen to keep making the Kombi," she said. "If they stop, I could go out of business. God willing, I'll have a new one someday."