The local press has recently been featuring little news items proclaiming that the Kombi is turning 60. Apparently there has recently been an official gathering of several thousand Kombis in Hanover to celebrate the 'birthday', reportedly hosted by VW. Similarly, the recent Old Bar gathering near Taree was also held partly in celebration of the Kombi's '60th birthday'.
Well
folks, I hate to spoil the festivities, but sorry, it's not. For starters, you
never believe anything you read in the papers. See the article above? It refers
to 'Volkswagen's Hamburg factory'. Guess what - Volkswagen have never had a
factory in Hamburg.
The Transporter factory, since 1956, has been in Hanover. Ooops - first mistake! Also on the Old Bar event, I notice that they are still harping on about a 'world record attempt' for the 'largest congregation of the iconic hippie mover'. They are hoping for 'more than 200 Kombis'. That would be a fantastic turnout, but it isn't even close to a world record. Not within cooee of it, in fact. There's that event in Germany, reported above, with 'thousands of Kombis' attending. The German Bulli (Kombi) club also organise several large meetings each European summer. Over 1,000 Kombis attend VW Action every year. The SOTO (Society of Transporter Owners) meetings in California also attract several thousand Kombis, usually pre '67 only. Thousands of VW busses attend other big US VW shows like the VW Classic, the east coast Nationals and the Bug-o-Rama. But as we reported last year, the largest VW Type 2 show in the world is VanFest in Malvern, UK. Last year they had 6,000 - six thousand - Kombis turn up. Have a look at www.vanfest.org for more info and lots of mind-blowing photos.
Having
made this clear to the Old Bar organisers last year, it is disappointing to see
the same claims about 'world records' pop up again this year. Sure it might be
the biggest gathering of Kombis in Australia; I hope it is. But please, no more
nonsense about 'world' Kombi records, OK?
So, what's all this about the Kombi's 60th birthday, and why are people getting
it wrong? Perhaps we need to go into the Kombi's early history in detail to find
out.
The British Army was in charge of the ruined VW factory after the Germans surrendered in April 1945. A detachment of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) set up a repair shop for army vehicles within the factory, which was slated for demolition by the British. However, demand for transport, and concerns for the thousands of unemployed workers and refugees and their families saw the repair facility expanded, and production of the Beetle was restarted under control of Army officer Major Ivan Hirst. Colonel Charles Radclyffe, the transport commander of the entire British sector of Germany, had placed Major Hirst in charge of the VW works.
For several years the factory struggled to produce Beetles in the cold and wet ruins of the VW plant, in a time of food and housing shortages and an uncertain future. 1,785 Beetles were made under British control in 1945, and 10,020 in 1946. The British Army began pulling out as the factory, and the country, began to find its feet. When the Army's heavy engineering unit returned to England in 1946, there were no more large trucks within the factory. Major Hirst was faced with some serious logistical problems in moving supplies, parts and tools around the slowly rebuilding factory, so he looked at what he had and engineered a solution. He had the first Plattenwagen ('flat-car') built, a homemade flat-bed truck made from VW parts. It had a ladder frame with Beetle axles, a front flat carry bed and an open cab above the rear VW flat-four engine. It proved a very useful addition to the factory, and soon there were dozens moving about the factory. Over the years following, improved versions were made to the same basic flat-bed design, but with more powerful VW engines and enclosed cabs with modern seats and headrests. Unbelievably, the last Plattenwagen was not taken out of service at the Wolfsburg plant until 1994!
Meanwhile, 8,987 Beetles were made in 1947, with production dropping due to bad weather, further hardship and lack of raw materials. Colonel Radclyffe met with Dutch trader Ben Pon when he visited Wolfsburg, with aim of trading cars for steel. Pon had wanted to sell the KdF-Wagen since before the war, and now he was getting his chance. Pon bought six VWs and took them back to Holland for sale in October 1947, the first exports to that country. Pon became VW's first-ever foreign franchisee, and by 1966 his Dutch VW distributorship had grown to a network of 300 dealers importing and selling 50,000 VWs each year. By then, Holland was second only to the USA in export sales of Volkswagens.
On
one of his 1947 visits to Wolfsburg, Pon noticed the Plattenwagens driving about
the factory carrying Beetle parts and materials from one assembly line to
another. Pon was a motoring man and had a long history of working with and
driving automobiles before the war. He realised that the Plattenwagens had the
potential to be more than just crude factory transports; they could be the basis
for something more. They reminded him of small traders' vehicles he had seen
before, such as the pre-war DKW twostrokes, but like them the Plattenwagens were
slow, inefficient and could only carry limited loads. He spoke with Major Hirst
about licencing the Plattenwagen for sale in Holland, but this was rejected.
Undaunted, Pon took out his notebook and sketched the outline of a cargo van.
His outline envisaged a van with a box-shaped body with rear engine and front
steering, and a payload of 750 kg. He showed his rough drawing to Major Hirst
and discussed the proposal with him, insisting that such an expanded
Plattenwagen could be a sales success. Hirst was cautious but agreed that there
was a demand for such a vehicle in the rapidly recovering German economy.
As
engineering commander of the British sector, Colonel Radclyffe's permission was
required before any new project could commence, as the outlay of manpower and
resources needed to be considered. He listened with great interest to Pon's
proposal and agreed the idea was a good one, but concluded that it was
impractical. In 1947 the factory was recovering but still mostly damaged and
unusable from wartime bombing, and the areas that were in use were fully
stretched making Beetles. Raw materials and parts were still hard to obtain, and
any kind of design or testing department did not yet exist. The idea was
shelved. In the meantime the country continued to recover. The British Army had
been instrumental in getting the VW factory going again, but the time was
quickly coming for them to hand the growing concern back to the Germans. On
Hirst's recommendation, ex-Opel manager Heinz Nordhoff was appointed chief of
the Volkswagenwerk in January 1948. Major Hirst might have wanted the job
himself, but he recognised that Nordhoff was best for the job. The factory
needed a strong, autocratic, even dictatorial boss to see the company into the
future and Nordhoff was perfect for the role. Although he didn't personally like
Nordhoff, Hirst passed on all his knowledge and suggestions before returning to
England, including Pon's idea for a VW-based van.
It didn't take long for the Germans to follow up on the idea. Nordhoff met with VW development chief Alfred Haesner in the autumn of 1948, only eight months after taking charge of the VW works, and gave him the go-ahead to design a 'box on wheels'. The design team took only a few weeks to come up with the first drawings of the 'Type 29 project'. Nordhoff looked over the plans for the first time on 20 November 1948. There were two alternative designs, both based around as many Beetle components as possible. Version A had a flat, straight driver cab. Version B had a front that was raked slightly without a projecting roof. Nordhoff gave his approval for prototypes to be built of Version B. The first vehicle was ready by 11 March 1949. The first prototype tests took place on 5 April, but were quickly finished; they were a disaster. It was clear that the Beetle chassis was not strong enough to withstand the significantly higher stresses, as the bolted-on body quickly twisted and folded. Haesner's men went back to the drawing board and quickly set to work building a unitised body prototype, stiffer and stronger as well as lighter. The Beetle engine, torsion bar suspension and running gear were retained. The new design proved much stronger and was able to withstand the rigours of a 12,000 km test drive over the worst roads in Lower Saxony. The new sturdy longitudinal box sections with cross-members, outriggers and steel floor made a solid, integral unit that was extremely strong, resisting twisting and bending in all driving conditions, even when overloaded. And by 1949 the Beetle-based mechanicals were just as sorted and reliable. Kübelwagen-style reduction gears on the rear axles improved ground clearance and performance when fully loaded.
Eight prototypes were built in 1949 - six panel vans, a window van and a 'kombi-nation' window van with seats. All were subjected to long, punishing test-drives over the atrocious German roads of the time. Further improvements to the front body panel, pedal spacing, axle tubes and brakes were made to later prototypes as testing and final adjustments continued. Journalists were first shown the new Transporter at a press conference in Wolfsburg on 12 November 1949. It was well received, with most writers praising its drivability, practicality, economy and surprisingly good performance. After a period setting up tooling for manufacture in Wolfsburg, the first VW Type 2 vehicles came off the production line in February 1950 with full production commencing in March 1950, ten vehicles per day, when they first reached German VW dealers. At first only the Type 21 panel van was available, at a cost of DM5850, not much more than a Beetle.
The
Type 23 Kombi appeared soon after, in May 1950. It was fitted with windows and
two benches for transporting passengers. The true Microbus (Type 22) was
introduced in June 1950. By the end of the first year, production had increased
from 10 to 60 Type 2s per day.
The luxury Type 24 Samba Microbus first appeared in June 1951. The first VW Ambulance, the Type 27, appeared in December 1951, although the Meisen company had converted some VW vans in 1950 themselves. The Type 26 Single Cab Pickup appeared in August 1952, with corrugated steel floor and hardwood battens. The 100,000th VW Type 2 left the Wolfsburg factory on 9 October 1954, by which time production was 150 per day. Production was moved to a new, dedicated Transporter factory in nearby Hanover in March 1956, which is where VW Transporters are still built today. The Double Cab Pickup appeared in November 1958, together with the first Westfalia camper, large capacity pickup and police emergency vehicle.
By
1966, the Hanover Transporter factory was making 750 Type 2s every day, with
176,275 sold that year - some 79% of the German market share for 1- tonne vans.
By that stage, work was almost finished on the redesigned, modern T2 Transporter
that would appear in August 1967 as a 1968 model.
So, when is the 60th birthday of the Kombi? Ben Pon's notepad, remarkably, has survived and is today in the Wolfsburg museum. His sketch of an imagined VW van is dated 23 April 1947. So how cum those crazy Germans and our Old Barrers are celebrating a 60th birthday in October?? Nothing happened in respect of the VW Transporter in October 1947, as we have seen. Chuck Yeager did break the sound barrier in his Bell X-1 in October 1947 - maybe that's a reason to party?
In any case, Ben Pon's sketch was just an idea, just a suggestion, and was not carried straight out by VW. It wasn't the actual birth of the Kombi any more than the Plattenwagen was, which was what Pon's sketch was based on. There is no evidence that Alfred Haesner's design team referred to Pon's sketch in anyway when they designed the Type 2 in 1948; given a pile of VW parts, and the instructions to design a 'box on wheels', what other arrangement would you possibly come up with, than the one they did? And, as described, they had to redesign the body from a Beetle floorpan to a unitary body anyhow.
I think those 'Kombi Party' Germans, and the Old Barrers, are like people who celebrated the millennium in 1999, or who use nasal sprays - they are a bit premature. It seems clear that there can only be two possibilities. We could celebrate the Kombi's 'birth' as its first revealing at Heinz Nordhoff's press conference on 12 November 1949 - in which case the Kombi's 60th birthday will be 12 November 2009. OR - we could use the start of actual assembly line production, in February 1950, so we should have a 60th birthday party in February 2010. I don't mind - either day for a beer is fine with me.
Phil Matthews
PS - I suggested to the Old Barrers that they celebrate the introduction of the T2 'bay window' Kombi at the event last month. The T2, as you remember, appeared in August 1967 in Europe, so that makes 40 years recently and a nice thing to party about. Even better, the T2 appeared in Australia a bit later - February 1968 - so we can have a 40th birthday party for the 'bay window' next year too.