In <20050312003210.6081.qmail@web21324.mail.yahoo.com>, on 03/11/05
   at 04:32 PM, Barb Cotton <cottonscrafts@YAHOO.COM> said:

>Please excuse my ignorance, but what is an Optima battery? I will be
>putting an aux battery in my van for the first time this year, and would
>like to know what one works best for everybody. I was planning on a
>marine battery- is Optima a brand name? Thanks.

The Optima battery is pretty much the only deep cycle battery that fits
under the seat in a vanagon. You can put a car/starter battery in there,
but the deep cycle/marine style is too big.

You can find an Optima and its dealers on the web. Seem to be the most
popular choice of vanagon users.

John