A hero of construction work – Diepresse.com

Good, the so-called sambabus, the camping variant of the VW Bulli, has always been a comparatively luxurious affair that families in the fifties could only dream of in most cases. But that over $ 300,000 would be killed for such a copy, such as in 2019 for a 23-window version in a largely original condition, which then describes an unusual career.

As always, there are small quantities that heat the market, and so today significantly more copies circulate in the collector’s scene than was ever built by samba – thanks to resourceful restorers and good faith buyers.

Persistent

But also more trivial variants of the Bulli can also be considered a value system – up to current models, now in the sixth generation, which persistently oppose the usual loss of values ​​in up to six different derivatives. This is due to the good reputation in terms of construction quality and the special overall package, which is always carefully maintained by VW, to which there are hardly any alternatives – the competition never fully managed the magic formula.

And then the myth of the early decades resonates-as a hero of the reconstruction work after the war, as a hippies champion in the sixties and as a freedom symbol in a camper variant, gladly in do-it-yourself version, who could not afford the expensive California models.

Improvised. It is best to imagine the origin of the Ur-Bulli T1 as a VW Beetle without a body-a rolling soil group with a crackling rear engine, which was used as a van for factory traffic in Wolfsburg at the beginning of the beetle construction period. What started as a pure improvisation was soon provided with a practical structure and launched as a bus, platform truck and van from 1950; Made first in Wolfsburg, later (and until today) in Hanover.

The Bulli thus completed the beetle universe and also technically followed the pre-war construction. At least until 1990, when the T4 left the air -cooled boxer motor and switched to a contemporary layout with a water -cooled front engine and the drive in front.

This was repeated three decades later with purely electrical and hybrid drive. The current Bulli program thus consists of three pillars with six basic models: the Multivan and the identical California, the ID. Buzz (as a commercial vehicle ID. Buzz Cargo) as well as the van and the shuttle version Caravelle.

As the Bulli – who was never officially called – came to his nickname at all, is not completely clarified. A likely variant is the acronym of bus and van.