The Volkswagon Thing

            What were they thinking? How could the people behind the highly successful VW Beetle make something like this?

            The truth is that the Volkswagon Type 181 Kurierwagon was not originally designed to be sold to the public. In the 1960s, the German government was in need of a light weight, durable and inexpensive vehicle to serve a number of functions. VW, who had turned down a request a decade earlier to make such a vehicle, had seen the success in the United States of people using the Beetle to create off road dune buggies.

            Using the Beetle as the basic building block, they created the vehicle to answer the government’s call and in 1968 began rolling them off the assembly line. The vehicles proved to be a hit. And in 1971 they exploded their market by making them available to the general public, first in the US and Mexico and later in other parts of the world.

            With a surprisingly high ground clearance and a curb weight just a touch over 2000 pounds, the Thing, as it would be called (among other fun names such as the Safari – a fallout of its use in the Wild Animal Safari attraction at Kings island Amusement Park), proved its worth time and time again.

            Governments and individuals fell in love with the affordable reliability of the car. While the styling wasn’t anywhere near luxurious and the shape was something you either loved or hated, the vehicle sold very well into the early 1980s, even after VW had upped the specs and rolled out the Type 183.

            Now you don’t see that many of this run car driving around but I was lucky enough to spot one at a recent show. They aren’t very comfortable but they can be fun to drive and they will always get people to turn their heads and look.