Yahoo Autos VW has been trying to resurrect the Bus for over 20 years
It took Volkswagen more than five years offer a production version of its latest van concept here in the States, but the basic idea of resurrecting the original Bus released in 1950 is over 20 years old. Join us for a look at Volkswagen's previous Bus-inspired concepts.
Microbus Concept (2001)
Unveiled at the 2001 edition of the Detroit Auto Show, the Microbus Concept caught a ball set rolling by the New Beetle. Retro cars were hugely popular in the post-Y2K era: Mini had morphed into a standalone brand to modernize the original model (whose production run exceeded even the most optimistic expectations), the Chrysler PT Cruiser was one of the most head-turning cars on American roads, the BMW Z8 was marketed as a modern-day 507, and Ford was preparing to unveil the distinctly 1950s-flavored 11th-generation Thunderbird.
The plucky New Beetle arguably set this trend, and Volkswagen hoped to replicate its success by rebooting the Bus. Early on, it was evident that building a van with toaster-like proportions in line with the original's while staying on the legal side of global safety regulations wouldn't be feasible, and in hindsight the Microbus Concept shares several key styling cues with the ID. Buzz. It wore a tall and short front end, it eschewed round headlights in favor of high-mounted horizontal units, and it placed the driver behind (rather than on top of) the front wheels.
Power came from a front-mounted, 3.2-liter V6 rated at 231 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. Inside and out, the Microbus looked and sounded like a concept designed with production in mind, and Volkswagen announced plans to begin building it in Hanover, Germany, in 2003. Several setbacks (very few of which have been made public) delayed the project and the Microbus was ultimately canned in 2004.
Bulli (2011)
It took about a decade for Volkswagen to dust off the modern-day Bus project. One issue was that none of its global divisions truly needed the car; its American dealers had the Chrysler-built Routan minivan in their showrooms, its European dealers offered buyers people- and cargo-hauling versions of the fifth-generation Transporter, and its Brazilian stores still sold an updated, water-cooled version of the second-generation Bus. And yet, momentum picked up in Wolfsburg during the late 2010s. The Bulli (a nickname given to the original model in its home market) made its debut as a concept at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show with a lot of familiar design cues and a few unexpected ones.
