The original VW Transporter T1 with today’s T5 model
Seven years ago, in 2007, the Volkswagen Transporter celebrated its 60th birthday.
2014 marks the 60th anniversary of the first UK versions of this iconic vehicle, which was launched to UK buyers at the Earls Court Commercial Motor Show in 1954. UK sales in the Transporter T1’s first year totalled just 786, but they’ve risen steadily, and in 2013, VW sold 18,350 Transporter T5 models in the UK.
Although there are other vans that can do the same job as the Transporter, very few — except perhaps the Ford Transit — have ever come close to the Transporter in terms of image and desirability.
Here in the UK, we’ve taken the Transporter to your heart, but the British connection goes back to the van’s very conception, in war-torn post-WWII Germany.
Major Ivan Hirst – a senior British army officer placed in charge of re-commissioning the post-war Volkswagen factory. He ordered the creation of a flat-bed truck – dubbed the Plattenwagen – to move parts around the factory. The innovative truck soon caught the eye of visiting Dutch importer Ben Pon in the mid-1940s, who proposed the idea of a more developed panel van version.
Volkswagen Transporter T1, T2 and T3 models. The T3 was the last rear-engined model.
The idea was welcomed by Volkswagen, but the firm wasn’t able to put it into production until the late 1940s, when it made the journey from drawing board to production line in an astonishingly short 13 months — a gestation period that would be unthinkable today.
Having quickly established its superiority over its rivals, the T1 became the template for light commercial panel vans, pick-ups and microbuses – selling strongly for 17 years.
Such was the brilliance of the original that the T2 that replaced it in 1967 retained much of its underpinnings. Even the boxy third-generation T3 that appeared in 1979 employed the neatly balanced, load-friendly rear engine layout of the original.
Indeed, it wasn’t until the fourth-generation T4 arrived in 1990 that Volkswagen switched to the now familiar front-engine, front-wheel drive layout. And just as the original had done in 1954, the T4 set new standards for refinement, quality and flexibility.
The fifth-generation Transporter T5 appeared in 2003, and raised the bar even higher with an even bigger load area, broader range and a host of advanced new technologies.