30 years of Bulli

Was that still a real Bulli? No boxer engine, no box-shaped, iconic front design, no rear engines, the Volkswagen T30 introduced 4 years ago apparently broke with almost everything that companies, families and activists loved about the most popular German vans of the post-war era. Even VW CEO Carl Hahn found it difficult to radically turn away from the legendary rear engine concept, as he later confessed in his memoirs. But the increasingly fierce competition - particularly from Ford Transit and the Mercedes Vans - required a rethink towards an even larger, almost unmanageable variety of variants, including at Volkswagen. This zeitgeist brought the new traction head concept for the fourth Bulli with a front engine and front-wheel drive, two different wheelbases, three payload classes, four-, five- and six-cylinder engines, optional all-wheel drive and over 20 body concepts. Around two million Volkswagen T4s later it was clear: Even with the new concept, the Transporter could do everything that made the Bulli so fascinating. Not only the California for the leisure company of the 1990s, the family-loving Multivan and the ultra-expensive Caravelle Business confirmed the T4 in its role as the most iconic panel van, against which the competitors were only able to achieve respectable successes, and the "Nutzis" were successful as before.

It is the globally popular German icon among small vans, because the Volkswagen Transporter, affectionately known as the Bulli, first brought authorities, trades and families in the Federal Republic into motion from 1950 and then all five continents. Not to forget his role as a pioneer of recreational vehicles and as a popular symbol of the hippie and flower power generation. All of this as a beetle-based construction and up to the third generation with the sound of boxer engines. But then came 1990. The wall between East and West had fallen, Germany was reunited and the GDR two-stroke Bulli Barkas rolled into the museum. At the same time, Ford, Mercedes, Fiat, Renault, Peugeot and Citroen pushed their way onto the market with ever wider range of vans, for the time being without endangering the position of the VW van dynasty with its particularly car-like driving characteristics. Nevertheless, it was clear to VW boss Hahn that the time had come for a technical revolution in the Bulli.

Successful in America

Hahn acquired crucial van expertise early on as Head of Volkswagen of America. In 1961 he succeeded in making the small, weakly motorized and by no means cheap VW T1 the favorite of American families, which outstripped the strong US models at the time and thus co-founded the family van segment. Around 30 years later, under Hahn's leadership, Volkswagen dispensed with the unique selling point of rear-engined rear-wheel drive vehicles. Instead, the fourth generation of the Bulli, developed by chief designer Karl Nachbar, was supposed to bring the quantum leap to front-wheel drive - a change that was comparable to the change from the Beetle to the Golf. In fact, the T4 was not only about profound technological changes and a completely new front design, but also about the question of whether the new Transporter would continue to stand for that unique attitude to life that made the Bulli desirable until then and made collectors and enthusiasts pay the highest prices.

That is why Volkswagen tried to reconcile the hardcore community of the veteran rear-engined Bulli with a T3 Limited Last Edition a year and a half after the introduction of the new one. Everyone else was enthusiastic about the new Bulli concept right from the start. With innovations such as all-round independent wheel suspension, increased passive safety thanks to the longer front end, comparatively powerful engines and an unrivaled dense network of body and equipment variants, including comfort features that were not yet taken for granted at the time, such as air conditioning, the fourth generation of the VW van filled the VW order books at one go that reminded some market observers of the furious start of the first Golf. While Chancellor Helmut Kohl was upset by the supposed phenomenon of the leisure society and preferred a Mercedes-Benz S-Class as a company car, Volkswagen reinvented the California as a fresh universal genius for wanderlust addicts and the Caravelle for company bosses who appreciated luxury without a star. Above all, the spirited five-cylinder TDI direct-injection diesel engines available from model year 1996 and a VR150 petrol engine with 204 kW / 6 hp with up to 150 kW / 204 hp secured the overtaking lane for the previously rather leisurely Bulli. The T4 was the first European transporter to scratch the 200 km / h sound barrier, a record that was noted by Vmax fetishists at the time.

Don't skimp on comfort

As the agile and comfortable Caravelle VR6, the VW even outclassed newly developed vans such as the Mercedes V-Class launched in 1996 in comparative tests. But there was even more, as the leather-lined VW Caravelle Business office vehicle showed, which, including modern communication equipment and comfort features, cost almost 120.000 marks and was therefore on the road at Mercedes S-Class level. The motorized California holiday apartment could also be converted into a luxurious second home if required, and like other T4s with an optional long wheelbase and all-wheel drive. Westfalia delivered a total of around 2003 California by 39.000, with a variable pop-top roof or a feudal high roof including alcove, with a good "Berlin" floor plan - that is, a kitchen and cupboard block opposite the sliding door - or as a cult special model - long life expectancy always included. This is evidenced by the many California survivors who are now given the chance to receive an official H license plate for vehicles at least 30 years old.

But the Karmann motorhomes and the rare Kamei ClubVan conference vehicle also consolidated the aura of the T4, not to mention the family-friendly Multivan, which, as a special “Last Edition” model in 2003, marked the end of this Bulli generation. The main business was also the commercial vehicle variants with the T4. Whether at the police, the armed forces or at construction sites and weekly markets, with courier services or handicraft businesses, the T4 did its job in almost countless specifications. After all, it was available from the closed box for little money to the spacious Doka as a tipper or as a chassis with cab and space for custom-made bodies. Including a so-called Happy Face, which adorned the VW from 1996. What was meant was a radiator grille whose lower corners should lift up like the corners of a happy person's mouth. In fact, the successful fourth Bulli gave the serious cool faces of the competition no opportunity to grin, which is why it remained in production for a proud 14 years, longer than all other VW vans. Only one thing the newly conceived T4 failed: to top the cult status of its predecessors.