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NEWS
VW Kombi to finally call it quits
Iconic German people-mover to bow out after 63 years as safety legislation catches up with Volkswagen's KombiOne of the world’s most famous automotive icons will be discontinued next year when Volkswagen gives birth to its last Kombi after more than six decades of continuous production.
According to the UK’s Autocar, new safety legislation in Brazil – the only country in which the Kombi is still produced – will force Volkswagen to stop building its symbol of the swinging ’60s by the end of next year.
South America’s largest country will require all new models to come with anti-lock brakes and at least two front airbags from 2014, meaning the last T2, as it’s known in Brazil, is likely to be produced on December 31, 2013 – 64 years after the original Kombi first appeared in 1949.
Egon Feichter, VW’s product development chief for Brazil, told Autocar at the weekend’s Sao Paulo motor show that although the Kombi will continue to meet Brazilian emissions regulations into the future, it would need to become “a new car” to comply with the new safety legislation.
While production of the T2 ceased in Europe and the US in 1979, Argentina in 1986 and Mexico in 1996, VW’s main Anchieta factory in Brazil still produces about 250 standard and panel van derivatives of the T2 every day. The Anchieta factory opened as VW’s first plant in Brazil in November 1959. Brazil’s largest vehicle manufacturer has since opened a further three plants, but the 100-hectare Anchieta factory remains its biggest, in the world’s sixth largest economy.
Together, VW’s four Brazilian plants have the capacity to produce no less than 3500 vehicles and 3200 engines every day. Last year VW produced 828,400 vehicles and 22 models including the top-selling Gol, plus the Voyage, Fox, Polo, Parati, Saveiro, Golf, Suran and T2 Kombi.
Before it achieved cult status globally, Volkswagen’s original Type 2 was first introduced in 1950 as the German car-maker’s second model line after the Type 1 (Beetle). Also known as the Transporter, Kombi and Microbus in various markets, the T2 prompted almost all major manufacturers to build a similar one-box delivery van for commercial markets globally, although it was based on the same rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration as the Beetle.
Although the first Volkswagens were fully imported to Australia in late 1953, they were produced from completely knocked down (CKD) kits from the following year in Melbourne. Full Australian manufacture of both the Beetle and Kombi occurred between 1959 and 1968, before both models reverted to CKD production. Nissan bought VW’s Clayton factory in 1976 – the same year the last Australian Beetle was made – and production of the Kombi, Golf and Passat ended in 1977.
The T2 was powered over the years by a range of air-cooled flat-four boxer engines ranging from a 35kW 1.6-litre to a 52kW 2.0-litre, matched with both four-speed manual and three-speed automatic transmissions. Volkswagen has applied the Kombi nameplate to various models over the years – including a camper version of the latest T5 Transporter – and looked ready to resurrect the beloved concept via a modern-day successor at least twice in the past.
Bearing a striking resemblance to the original T2 was both the 2001 Microbus concept, which also appeared at the Sydney motor show that year before plans for US production in 2005 were scrapped, and the more recent Bulli concept car that debuted at the 2011 Geneva motor show.
Unlike the original air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-drive Kombi (and the V6-powered Microbus concept), the six-seat Bulli concept employed the same front-engine/front-drive platform as the up!, with which it was expected to share its 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engine.
However, a production version of the pint-size (3990mm) Bulli people-mover has also been shelved.
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Written byMarton Pettendy
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