Mr. squirrel:

I'm no expert on the vanagon's cooling system, but simple logic tells me it
takes longer to heat up a greater volume of liquid than it does a smaller
volume. What's the capacity of your wife's Subaru outback cooling system? (I
should know as I own one, but don't) maybe 2 gals? Now, what's the capacity
of the Vangon's cooling system, 19liters? (over 4gals) It takes X. amount of
BTUs to heat up a given amount of liquid, and I think the simple answer in
this case is the Vanagon simply has more to heat up. Of course, we could try
to make it more complicated if you like;)

Troy