Roger - To be the voice of reason, again, I would call for someone out there with a Kitfox-VW to please step forward and tell us of their success. I would gladly offer a retraction of my skepticism. But, the silence of this group is deafening, due to, in my opinion, the fact they do not exist.

If in the 70 years of VW history and near 30 years of Kitfox history these two have not matched, I don't believe they ever will. Lowell makes some valid points as to why.

I can comment on the reliability issue from seeing several local VW powered aircraft that do not fly due to their owners being afraid of their engine's reliability. This includes an Aerovee powered Sonex suffering ignition, carburetion and general power related performance problems.

Also as point of evidence, a few months ago, there was an article in Kitplanes Magazine (I think) on a VW powered 701 that was built extremely inexpensively. The owner commented that he was not flying it much until he is able to repower it with a Rotax. Siting performance and reliability as his reasons for the repower.