well, my understanding from what i thought i understood from the literature
is that

Kombi - basic bus. basically no interior in the rear section, but it did
        have seats. in the vanagon, this was changed to have interior, but
        it was lesser quality, and the seats were all vinyl, rubber mats on
        the floor, and no sliding windows in the middle windows.

Vanagon/Caravelle - interior was better quality, sliding windows in the
        middle. in early days, u.s. models could still get rubber mats and
        vinyl seats ('standard' model, like my 1980), but 'L' models (and
        later 'GL' models) got carpet on the floor and cloth seats.

that's the way i understand it to be. anybody know different? i'm getting this
from some german books and german magazine ads (and german sales brochures
for the Transporter).  at least, that's what i get from the pictures. :)

joel