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Volkswagen Transporter (Rear Engined).

The Volkswagen Transporter is a car of legend. Born of Volkswagen Beetle mechanical parts, the boxy deliver van became the VW Combi, the flower people's palace on wheels, travelling through Europe, California, and more adventurously India and Morocco; in fact some of them still do. Aging hippies turn misty eyed at the thought.

From 1955 to 1976 Volkswagen Transporters were also assembled from kits at Clayton in Victoria, Australia. (The factory was subsequently acquired by Nissan.) The panel fit was not as good as on imported Transporters but the locals went just as well. Volkswagen reports that 77,800 Transporters were registered in Australia.

Volkswagen's air-cooled flat-4 engines have a tremendous reputation for rattling on forever, although oil leaks can be a chronic problem and siezed valves are not unknown. The rear engined layout put the weight over the rear wheels and gave good traction, but it made the engine susceptible to damage from dust drawn into the air intake on dirt roads. Raised air intakes improved matters.

Volkswagen's final 1982 incarnation of the rear engined Transporter had a water-cooled engine which cured occasional problems with sticking-valves, allowed closer tolerances for reduced emissions and lowered noise levels. It also introduced the Syncro four wheel drive Transporter (left) which had quite surprising offroad abilities. The 4WD modifications were carried out by Steyr Daimler Puch, part of the deal being that Steyr could use Volkswagen's diesel in their own Pinzgauer. Many VW Syncros were made into four wheel drive campers so that you could go offroading in luxury.

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1950: first transporter, rear engined, air-cooled, 4x2

1955: assembly begins in Clayton Victoria (end 1976)

1968: Mk2 Transporter, Y-frame chassis

1982: Mk3 Transporter, water cooled, 4x2 or Syncro 4WD

1992: front wheel drive

Phil Lander's 14" Transporter, fitted with 15" wheels and 16" flares.

Tom Niksch writes:
"Type II" is used by Volkswagen as a general name for all the Transporters, "Type I" was the beetle, Type III the 1500 sedan and its derivates. Type II T1 (1950), T2 (1967) T3 (1979) and T4 (1990) were used for the revisions, but the may overlap, eg. the Type II T3 series lasted from 1979 until 1992 in European production and lives on in South Africa and South America. So eg. the T3 stands for Mk3. (according to: Randolf Unruh "VW Transporter & Bus" Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart)

To make confusion complete: In the mid to late 1970's there were first 4WD Transporter prototypes built, based on the Type II, T2 with the 70 HP air cooled 2.0l Boxer. Steyr-Puch was not involved until the Type II T3 4WD (later named "syncro") was developed and manufactured in the mid 1980's

VW Crew-Cab

• T3 syncro total: 43,468
  including:
  • LHD: 41,360
  • RHD: 2,108
• engines:
  • 2.1l i (95 HP) 14,233
  • 2.1l i (112 HP) 6,259
  • 1.9l (78 HP) 6,641
  • 1.6TD (70 HP) 16,335
• Transporter
  • "Pritschenwagen" Pick-Up Single Cab (245) 1,787
  • "Doppelkabine" Pick-Up Double Cab (247) 6,849
  • "Kastenwagen" Van, panels (251) 5,848
  • "Kombi" Bus (253) 14,650
• Caravelle Bus (255) 14,334
• 16" package: 2,138

Thanks to Tom Niksch and to Peter Farrer for information.

Go to the Syncro-16, front-engined and VW pages