Background
The T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 ‘campers’ are all types of VW Type 2s.
The VW Type 2 (which covers everything we think of as a VW ‘camper’) followed on from the VW Type 1, which was the Beetle.
Got that?
We know. It’s very confusing.
Anyway.
The first of the ‘camper’ vans was the T1, produced from 1950 to 1967.
Know in Germany as the ‘Transporter’ or the somewhat less catchy ‘Kombinationskraftwagen’, the air-cooled rear-engined T1 quickly earned a reputation for reliability, capability and ease of maintenance.
Many of the T1s designated for export were configured as commercial vehicles – usually panel vans or pick-ups.
This came to an unforseen end due to the ‘Chicken War’ of 1964.
Yes, you read that right.
The Chicken War.
France and Germany, for whatever reason, had decided to slap whopping big tariffs on chickens imported from the USA.
This punitive chicken tax ruffled the feathers of President Lyndon Johnson, who retaliated by imposing a 25% tax (almost ten times the average US tariff) on potato starch, dextrin, brandy and…….light trucks.
Feeling as if they’d just been slapped firmly on both cheeks with a metaphorical duelling glove, VW responded with typically Teutonic pragmatism.
They set about circumventing the tariff by exporting far more of the non-commercial, camper van versions of the T1.
These were then converted for commercial use upon arrival in the USA – or not.
Either way, the wider world became accustomed to seeing these funky camper van things in ever increasing numbers – and, broadly speaking, it liked what it saw.
The T2 was introduced in 1967 and remained in production, latterly in Brazil, until 2013.
The T2’s functionality, practicality and alternative, non-conformist looks resonated with the prevailing zeitgeist of civil rights activism, flower power, anti-Vietnam sentiment, free love and reasonably priced drugs.
If you were in any way minded to turn on, tune in or drop out, then a T2 Bay Window with a psychedelic paint job was almost certainly your ride of choice, dude.
