Post submitted by Ella, one of our LCAHM Student Experience Ambassadors
The Volkswagen Transporter is a range of light commercial vehicles, built predominantly as vans. The design and manufacturing of the Type 2 Transporter was inspired by an idea from the then-Netherlands-VW-importer Ben Pon.
The Type 2 was recognised as one of the forerunners of the modern cargo and passenger vans. Like the Volkswagen Bettle, the Type 2 Transporter has received several nicknames across the globe, some of which include microbus and minibus. Due to its popularity in the counterculture movement in the 1960s and 1970s it became known as the “hippie bus”.
The first generation of the van featured a split windshield and was produced from 8th March 1950 until the end of the 1967 model year. It was only for the first six years of manufacturing that the Type 2 was built in Wolfsburg, before being transferred to a new Transporter factory in Hanover.