HO 1:87 Scale
The VW bucket car” offers driving fun for civilians, too”
55 years ago, the VW 181 stepped onto the stage of the automotive world and immediately rolled into Bundeswehr barracks yards and the vehicle depots of fire brigades, the THW and the German Red Cross in large numbers. It is hard to believe that individual VW 181 vehicles are still ready for use in these halls, as the emergency services do not want to part with their loyal veteran. Other emergency vehicles have now been decommissioned and, like the WIKING model, offer driving fun for the civilian population. In the United States, the VW type 181 has long attained the status of a legend – as a “just for fun” leisure vehicle. Its name in the States: The Thing! The wannabe off-road vehicle neither had four-wheel drive nor off-road gearing, to say nothing of its ground clearance. When the VW 181 was presented at IAA 1969, its initial mission as a vehicle was of a purely military nature. In fact, in the nineteen sixties, the European countries wanted to jointly build a Jeep counterpart, but the project never got off the ground. At the time, the German armed forces were under pressure because the production of the DKW Munga had ceased in 1968. VW took action, and placed the type 181 on a platform frame, and the VW Beetle contributed the engine. Initially presented as a courier wagon”, the 181 was quickly renamed “bucket car” in the vernacular coined by the soldiers. While the vehicle succeeded the Wehrmacht original – and showed certain similarities with its predecessor – Bundeswehr officials frowned upon this moniker chosen by the soldiers. 140,768 vehicles rolled off the production line between 1969 and 1980. Initially in Wolfsburg, then in Hanover and Emden. Solely produced at the branch in Mexico, the last incarnation of the VW 181 embarked on varied missions as a utility vehicle.”
