VW Type 181 courier van by aRi F. Huber

About "VW Type 181 courier van"

by aRi F. Huber

About the artwork

A guy with strong words
"A car for men who have to get by,"
was the title of the 1969 sales brochure for the Volkswagen Type 181, which came onto the market in 1969 and was known in Germany as the "Kurierwagen", in Mexico as the VW Safari and in the USA as "The Thing".

In the case of the Kurierwagen or Kübelwagen, you could also say that when the round becomes the square and without any comfort, that's all a Bundeswehr soldier needed. But it soon became a leisure car for those who found a Beetle convertible too boring and today it is a well-maintained cult vehicle just for relaxation, with a maximum speed of 110 km/h and of course without four-wheel drive according to the Bundeswehr's specifications! But for those who wanted it, a limited slip differential for DM 435 was already available as an optional extra back then, as well as heated seats and much more. The engine was a familiar one from the VW Beetle 1302 S, but in this case the throttled 1.6 litre engine with a compression ratio of 7.5:1 only produced 44 hp. Otherwise a lightweight at just 900 kg, with a payload of 430 kg. Four fully synchronised forward gears were installed for the transmission and a dual-circuit front/rear brake system with drum brakes was completely sufficient for the low overall weight.

Basically an automobile as it is written in the book, honest and with plenty of beading and edges, a large part of the production went to the Bundeswehr, a total of over 140,768 courier vans were built worldwide.