>> I'm assuming the answer isn't in me Bentley to this one.  Why do some
owners refer to their vans being 81.5, 83.5 and such? <<

I have an 83.5. I call it the "experimental year" Vanagon. It was the first
year water-cooled. The prior 6 months were air cooled.  It's great when you
go to a FLAPS and confuse the ^*^$% out of them.  You get to come home with
wrong parts too. I'm even lucky enough to have parts that were only made for
this half year vehicle.  What's nice is I get the turd brown color from the
early eighties with the added bonus of leaky heads.  A nice combo.

;-)

Bryan