The Iconic VW Transporter Has Just Turned 75

Things that are turning 75 this year include the Formula 1 World Championship, the Peanuts comic, and Agneta from ABBA. Thanks, Wikipedia. Anyway, we can add to that list the VW Transporter van, which is almost exactly 75 today.

Technically it’s 75 years and two days old, the first ever example rolling off the production line on 8 March 1950, but 8 March this year was a Saturday, so this is the best we can do.

Anyway, it’s pretty rare for an automotive nameplate to last that long without interruptions – the Porsche 911 has only been around for 62 years, and the Toyota Corolla a paltry 59 years. The Chevrolet Suburban and Ford F-Series pickup are the only ones we can think of that have been around longer, but we’re getting off topic. Again.

Now in its seventh generation, the Transporter began in 1950 as the T1, a humble panel van that packaged up the mechanical bits of the Beetle into a shape more amenable to carrying lots of stuff about. That was the legendary split-screen version, the one that, in passenger-carrying Microbus form, went on to be hippie culture’s transport of choice in the ’60s and is now worth truly eye-watering money. Seriously, go have a look at prices these days and prepare to collect your jaw from the floor.

That lasted until 1967 when it morphed into the still iconic, but slightly less silly-money, ‘bay window’ T2. While that stayed in production in Brazil right up until 2013, 1979’s T3 saw the Transporter take on a boxier shape that saw the angle-crazed 1980s coming.

That was the last one to be based on a rear-engined, rear-drive layout, with the 1990 T4 taking on the front-engined setup we’re still familiar with today. It was followed up by the T5 in 2003, the T6 in 2015, and finally the T7, revealed just last year.

While the new one is little more than a Ford Transit in a German suit, it nonetheless carries on a name that’s as important to Volkswagen now as it was back in 1950. Naturally, the company's got some big birthday plans lined up, with big Transporter meets planned in both Wolfsburg and VW Commercial Vehicles’ hometown, Hanover, plus countless others.

So, happy birthday, Transporter. What’s your favourite version of all? Ours still has to be the obscenely rare, Porsche flat-six-powered B32.