The VW Camper really was the first commercial camper dreamed out of a light commercial vehicle.
Sketched up by Dutch VW importer Ben Pon (1904-1968), not to be confused with his son the racing driver Ben Pon, it was created to answer a purely industrial problem. Pon Senior and his brother Winjnand, were the original dealers-distributors for VW in the Netherlands. Pon’s Automobielhandel is even celebrated by some auto historians as the first Europeans to send a VW Beetle to the United States from their base in Amersfoot.
Pon sent VW headquarters a concept sketch based on a cannibalised “platwaggen” with a flatbed that he had noticed hauling car parts around at the German factory on a sales trip.
He thought it would make an ideal, modern alternative to the horse and cart for a range of applications. His design was taken up, but what he can’t have known is how the emerging VW “buses” based on his simple idea (habitable, passenger fit-outs) would accelerate into cult status.
The VW Type 2 (the Germans designated the Beetle as the T1) in all its body-types, looks very much like Pon’s little notebook scribble of April 23, 1947, a rounded upright bonnet and toaster body with a delicious slight swell to the roofline. It’s a forward-control van with the driver sitting over the front wheels.
Simple, spacious floor-to-head-liner, and remarkable for the time, it could be knocked up with base parts from the VW factory and be capable of totting up to 1,500lbs (690kg).
It would be two years before what became the Type 2 was approved for production in a Kombi (versatile with moving seats for passengers) and as a Commercial.
The air-cooled engine, and rear barn-doors of the T2 were enhanced by a side-sliding door in 1964, and the T2 model of van variants continued to be produced in Brazil right into the late 1970s.
The VW engineers had to overcome the considerable aerodynamic drag on the flat front of the T2. This led to some of its signature charms including a V-shaped panel spliced up to the windscreen of the bus. By 1950 the range had been joined by the Microbus, and 10,000 T2 VWs were produced in Germany.
VW moved the Transporter factory to Hanover to keep up with demand. In 1951 a T2 ambulance was introduced followed by a Pick-up in 1952 (similar to the self-build which had inspired Pon in the first place).
This split-screen T1 VW camper van made from 1949 to 1967 is its most iconic form for most buyers. Even balanced on decayed thin-walled tyres and quivering in rust, the Splitty is the barn find car collectors and van-livers dream about all over the world.
Around 200,000 Splities were sold in the US in the 1960s, the best hippy wagon imaginable with its glorious but modest lines, a great canvas for a psychedelic paint job. The Bay Camper (named for the screen design) released in 1967 and wound up in 1979 in Germany, was faster and markedly bigger than the T2.
It included more driving and comfort gadgets, a better suspension and electrics and (crucially) a broad, uninterrupted windscreen without that luscious panelled V.
The T2 was made in Mexico under license until 1994, an amazing record by any measure. Any VW type with a bay released after 1972 is deemed a late Bay.
Pon’s original blunted-brick vehicle was retained until 1979, with the launch of the T3 or Vanagon types (sold in the US) when the weight and altered outline of the van murdered its original elegance.
The front end of any motorway-ready camper, has developed an inevitable and safer poke to it, and the today’s T6-1 Californian camper vans from VW based on the Transporter, though practical and handsome, don’t tug at this heart (from €58,710-€76,190).
A bit of insider information here — since the 1990s VW camper fans began referring to the T2 (1949-1967) as the T1; confusing. The T1.5 refers to Brazilian made T1 types with a few differences to the German build. Americans name vintage VW buses for the number of windows and are highly obsessive about their fenestration (a blazing 23 in an American-marketed Samba bus including the roof lights).
Transporter conversions with a premium fit, certified and in any sort of good condition from the mid-1990s forward are running at €15,000 and up, with vintage T2s from the low €20s in on-the-road condition without the rust holding hands to secure it. You might find a 1980s VW Westfalia fondly referred to as a Westy type in restored condition for the €12,000 mark.
Westfalia was actually in there from 1950s, when VW sponsored conversions of the VW transporter to a camper-van using a camper box by the company Westfalia-Werke.
They handled the majority of the pop-up roof kits offered as an option. Even in need of some TLC, retro Westies with their signature angles, once dismissed as gurn-faced uglies by VW vintage purists, are now in high demand.
Pushing aside the environmental blushes of a 2.4l diesel engine demanded of a new T6 California, the new VW ID Buzz, an all-electric VW camper-van closely modelled on the original T2 (but a lot safer), is in R&D for the American and European market. It’s not in the showroom yet, but you can find out more from VW Ireland.
I expect for all that Buzz and green credentials, this glorious VW is going to be very expensive to deliver a practical 480 kilometre range from the battery, especially if VW include any of their autonomous driving features.
VW has announced they intend to launch a commercial, all-electric, self-driving taxi and delivery service in Hamburg, Germany in the shape of VW ID vans starting in 2025. I’ll be looking out for those, and ready to leap for der Gehsteig (the pavement).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen
Fifty years ago, on February 17th, 1972, the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle was produced in Wolfsburg, Germany, surpassing the production record that had previously only been held by the Ford Model T. In celebration of that record-breaking achievement, Volkswagen released the commemorative World Champion special edition, which was sold through March that year. Today, we salute the humble “Bug” and the legacy that it built as one of history’s most significant automobiles.
When the first Beetle rolled off the production line, it was simply called the Volkswagen— “the people’s car”—but its distinctive shape inspired nicknames across the globe: Beetle, Käfer, Vocho, Coccinelle, Fusca, or Maggiolino. Series production started in 1945, and 21.5 million first-generation cars were sold, making it the most popular car manufactured off a single platform of all time.
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