> Jon Stanton wrote:

>  Of these ads for Vanagons, a rather large part of them refer to
> having a "Ford V-6" in them.  It seemed that this was the conversion of
> choice over there.  Can anyone offer any comments or explanation on this.

I've never come across any Ford-converted Transporters/Vanagons over here (I live
in Holland), so I'll have to guess a bit. The Ford V-6 they probably used is the
engine used since the early Seventies in Fords Consul, Capri, Granada, Taunus,
Sierra, and Scorpio. It's a pushrod clunker, available in 2.3 l and 2.8 l
capacity, that was specific to Europe. It was known in the UK as the 'Cologne
V-6'. Some British sports car makers, like TVR before they got professional, also
used it. It was finally pushed to 2.9 l, and died a few years ago when Ford
Europe stopped producing the extremely ugly Scorpio. It's not a very smooth,
powerful, or economical engine, but it's very reliable.

Specifics on these conversions would probably not be useful for US list members
as the engine itself hasn't been on sale in the States.

HTH,
Robin
90 Vanagon Atlantic TD
84 Westfalia Joker D (fs)