Scene 1, Type 2


Caught on camera: a first-series Volkswagen Type 2 Deluxe Bus.
   SO TAKEN was I with the Sport Suburban of the previous post, I didn't realize until checking my photos that I had also captured a first-generation Volkswagen Type 2 van, or bus.
   When I was young, the Type 2 (the Beetle was VW's Type 1 model, of course) was a regular sight. As a cargo hauler that could double as the family car, it offered compelling value to those willing to accept acceleration as slow as a Bavarian boat ride and the general stigma of owning an odd foreign bus-truck thing.
   I remember my father muttering when we would be caught in a line of cars behind one clattering up a hill. It's a wonder that the signs for the passing lanes finally introduced on the Trans-Canada Highway didn't bear an icon of a Volkswagen bus.
   
Wikipedia photo.
The Type 2 came in numerous versions including a pickup, a rusty example of which ran into the back of our 1963 Mercury Meteor at a stop sign. My mother was at the wheel, learning to drive, with my father next to her. I was in the back seat. No one was injured, but the driver's-side door of the Volkswagen fell off.
   It turned out that my parents knew the driver – our town was pretty small – and after some discussion we all drove away, the door now in the VW's cargo bed.
   Unmistakable for its deep-V, plunging-neckline front end that wears a huge VW emblem like a medallion, the first-series Type 2 was made in Germany from 1950 until 1967 and in Brazil from 1957 to as late as 1975. The one I photographed, which carries the logo of the state-owned Transtur company, is, I think, a Brazil-built Deluxe Bus. Note the bustle for added luggage capacity.
   Volkswagen Beetles are everywhere in Cuba; their van sister-models are much less common.
   Or maybe I'm just not noticing them.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discovered in Cuba, a rare Mercedes bird

Image
(December 2012 note: See update link, below.)     GUESS I'LL have to set aside my search for the younger Batista’s 1956 Corvette. An even tastier trophy has emerged – a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, better known as the Gullwing.    Even on the Island of Surprises, I’d be astounded to come across one of these rare beauties. But in a brief section on Cuba in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 2008), I see a photo of a battered 300SL observed by author Michael E. Ware outside a private garage near Havana.    The Gullwing, unmistakable lift-up doors in place, is dented and rusting and missing its engine, yet still would be prized by collectors the world over . . . if only they could extract it from Cuba. Restored, the Silver Metallic example with Lipstick Red interior might be worth more than $700,000 U.S.    Reached in England, Mr. Ware tells me he was holidaying in Cuba when an acquaintance brought him to an unnamed communit...
Read more

The Cuba Gullwing chronology

Image
How the 300SL would have looked new. Wikipedia photo.     IN SIX YEARS , no topic here has drawn more attention than the story of Cuba's rotting Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe. Visitors from around the world seem endlessly appalled and fascinated by the sad fate of such a rare and beautiful car.      The same analytics program that tells me the home nations of these visitors tells me where on this blog they land – and it's apparent that many are missing the full story (or as full as anyone has been able to make it). The world's largest Internet indexer – you know who I'm talking about – insists on routing the curious to a five-year post and refuses to make note of subsequent entries.    Why? Who knows?     To provide a more complete picture, here's a list of CARISTAS entries on the Gullwing, which, to be clear, was first brought to the world's attention by British auto historian Michael E. Ware in Automobiles Lost & Foun...
Read more