Around 10 years ago I test drove a Vanagon Diesel automatic (the two-tone yellow) that was for sale in Pleasanton, CA.  I even drove it over Altamont Pass (about a 1,000 foot pass, and you can get an idea of how you're going to do in the Sierras, so it's a decent test).  It was awful (not only the miserable acceleration but the fact that apparently the owner had let his 6 children do whatever they wanted with the inside of the van; you can imagine).  I was under the impression that the Diesel automatics were imported, but are even harder to find than the manual shift ones.  

>>> Tobin Copley <tobin.copley@UBC.CA> 02/21/01 09:01AM >>>
At 3:32 AM -0800 2/21/01, VW Addict aka The Bus Nut wrote:
>Was there ever a Vanagon made with the Diesel and Automatic trans?

Scott,

VW never sold at diesel Vanagon with automatic transmission in the
North American market.  I heard that they had considered it at one
point, but decided against it--there were already too many reports of
whiplash injuries and complaints of drivers' blood being sucked to
the back of their brains under hard acceleration in the manual
transmission Vanagon diesels due to their being enormously
overpowered, and they didn't want to make a bad situation worse by
adding an automatic transmission into the equation.  One huge
engineering problem with Vanagon-Ds (especially westfalias) was how
to get that 48 HP of gear-smashing, axle-swapping power to the road
without excessive wheel spin.

(Seriously, though, there where no auto diesels sold in NA.  Maybe in
Europe, although Europeans aren't big on automatics.  Perhaps the
time is nigh for your reason-for-living to learn to drive a manual?)

T.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tobin Copley        Bowen Island, BC, Canada      49deg 23'N-123deg 19'W

'82 Westfalia 1.6L NA diesel ("Stinky")
'97 son Russell                                   =============
'99 daughter Margaret                            /_| |_L| |__|:| clatter
                             SPEED KILLS!        {.            .| clatter!
                         Drive a Vanagon diesel   ~-()-==----()-~