Vanagon.com is a great place to start off. ( a big site)
A couple other notes:
air vs. water cooled, reads to me as "cold vs heated" . . .the heat exchangers on the air-cooled just dont do the job of heating all that volume.
I currently own a white syncro (all wheel drive). skip the syncro option unless you do a whole lot of snow driving, or
serious off-roading.
RE, safety:
http://vanagon.com/info/safety/volvo-crash/index.html