A funny story...

["GREAVES, AMNA" <AGREAVES@eng.pria.com>]

Right, I got a nice email from Adam, so here goes:

I have two friends in Germany Klaus and Karen, and although they work for 
Mercedes (they have the best jobs in the world - See footnote 1 & 2) they 
had many a VW (pronounced Fou-Veh in their slang) and loved them dearly. 
 Before they were married they lived together in a third story flat.  Klaus 
had a Beetle (which, as Karen said, he would carry on his back if he could, 
rather than drive it) and Karen had a Dasher.  Since the vehicle inspections 
in Germany are extremely vigorous (see footnote 3), so Klaus lent Karen his 
Beetle to do some shopping while he welded new metal to the underside of her 
doors.  As she went into a parkinglot that was for 'Compact Cars Only' she 
scraped a fender and was horrified.  His Beetle had three dinged fenders, 
and she had just scraped the last good one.  Petrifed, she gave him a call 
back at their flat to tell him about the fender.  Needless, she was a little 
suprised when he cracked up and said "That's OK Honey, I just put out the 
fire in your car".  It seems that instead of doing alot of little welds, he 
tried to do one big weld, and the door insulation caught fire and it spread 
to the wiring harness and the dash caught fire.  Since they lived on the 
third floor, Klaus had to bolt up and down three flights of stairs to fill a 
bucket with water, toss it on the car, and do it again.  By the time he was 
done, the dash had slagged.

In the end, they got a new dash from a junk yard from a fancier  model 
Dasher, but the car always smelled.

I think they sold the Beetle, after all - they are working for Mercedes.

               THE END

Footnote1: Working at Mercedes.  My friend Karen has a PhD in Materials, so 
she helps develop new applications of materials in the cars.  For example, 
they were testing a carbon-composite engine (the entire thing was made of 
carbon-composits, even the valves and shafts) and it was running on a stand 
in the test area.  Well alot of the male (it's still a predominantly male 
environment) engineers like to act macho and stand near the test, rather 
than behind the clear protective shield.  She insisted that they stand back 
there, and reluctantly the engineer agreed.  Moments later the engine 
exploded.

Footnote2: Mercedes likes to test it's prototype engines in production cars. 
 So they take these advance technology engines, cram them into your Mercedes 
sportster and let the engineers drive them around (home, work, Italy, 
wherever).  Most of these test cars have well over 250Hp, often more.

Footnote 3: Vehicle inspections in Germany are VERY rigorous.  They test 
both the engine and the physical integrity of the car.  To test the physical 
integrity, they take an ice pick or screw driver and jab the underbody in 
any place there might be rust.  If the tool goes through the metal, the car 
does not pass.  It's up to the inspectors discretion and they can and will 
chew the crap out of your underbody coating.  They recently passed a new law 
regarding desiels where they stress-test the engine almost to the point of 
failure.  If your engine craps out - well, that 's you're tough luck.
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