jp: as a longtime bus owner and later a vanagon owner, i have a very
strong bias against the water-cooled vanagon and a very strong preference
for the air-cooled van, although the latter are getting harder to find. the
waterboxer (water-cooled) has inherent heating problems, as most the posts
on this list indicate. an air-cooled  vanagon in reasonable shape with a
recently rebuilt engine and a recently rebuilt transmission (rebuilt engine
is necessary since the most recent was new in 1983) could run for many years
with minimum trouble if reasonably maintained. good luck on whatever you
choose. cheers, art mcginn, san fran, '82 westy (ex-'82 vanagon, ex-'68 bus)