The VW Country Buggy

Not a military vehicle at all, but the country buggy shares much of its off road characteristics and engineering philosophy with the wartime Kubelwagen and the post war type 181.

The Country Buggy was wholly designed and manufactures by Volkswagen Australia. Manufacture was begun in 1967 and between 1968 and 1969 only 1956 were sold to the Australian and New Zealand markets, with a further 400 left hand drive vehicles being exported in kit form to the Philippines, where it was called the Sakbayan "country vehicle".

The Buggy was built on a standard Australian type 1 base, and like the Kubelwagen has reduction (from the type 2) gears mounted on the rear wheels to give it ground clearance, but the Buggy had standard torsion arm Beetle front suspension, with type 2 kingpins to give the front the same ground clearance. It had drum brakes, rear wheel drive and 15 inch wheels.

Very much a bare bones car, the body was built up out of basic flat folded sheet metal, unfortunately where the box sides were spot welded to the front bulkhead created a weak point on these cars. It had no side doors, no roof (a canvas or fibreglass roof were options) and came with two front seats and a rear storage area. There were no heat exchangers fitted, but it had two exhaust mufflers, with the two pipes exiting through the rear body.

The dash had only the bear minimum of dials, and the front bonnet contained the fuel tank and spare wheel; the Country Buggy had no fuel gauge ; instead relying a reserve tap like the earliest post war Beetles. The front headlights were the standard pre 1967 Beetle design. Also, like earlier type 1s, the Buggy had 6 volt electrics.

One of these Australian Buggies was sent to Wolfsburg in 1968, but it is not known if it had any bearing in the development of the Type 181 "Thing" there. Back in Australia the Buggy couldn't have entered production at a worst time. It was basically filling a gap as production of the Beetle was being wound down in Australia and replaced by German imports. VW Australia itself was being folded up by Volkswagen AG and its manufacturing given over to Datsun. The Buggy was never really marketed, suffered early quality problems and died alongside VW Australia in 1969.

A Philippines built Buggy once made the London to Manila run, over 53,000 km. There are a probably over 100 still in existence, in Australia and the Philippines ; but their rugged lives mean there can't be many in original condition left.

Source: VW Club Magazine (UK)