Scott,
I think you can be 'anti-american' engine and still go with this engine choice - it was developed in Europe, with Ford of Europe (technically
not entirely the same company) working in cooperation with a european firm to design it. All of the nuts and bolts are metric sizes too, so you
don't have to go buy a standard set to work on it!

And if you could come up with a cheap reliable and readily available engine kit that fit into the Vanagon without major modification, I would be
first in line to buy it from you!

Peter