VW-Type 2

Subject:
Volkswagen
Type 2 Pickup
Kit Used: Hasegawa 1/24

Model & Review by:
Paul Romans
Pictures: R. Forys

November 2006
Model of the Month

The Kit: Hasegawa produces the Type-2 in passenger, delivery, and pick-up versions, and these are the only kits available of the venerable Bus except for Revell's ancient offering from the '50's. I've wanted a pick-up for a long time, but the wife thinks those are perhaps the ugliest vehicles she's ever seen, so I'll have to settle for the kit (for now).

The basic kit is pretty accurate, but lacking interior detail. I wanted to display the large "treasure-chest" compartment under the bed, so I opened the side panel with repeated knife cuts. I blocked off the front and rear with sheet styrene, and since the kit shares the chassis with the other versions, the floor was ribbed correctly. The suspension was way off, and the steerable front wheel linkage had to be cut off and glued back in at its correct, higher position. I added the long central heat pipe, making this from sprue.

The basic history of Volkswagen is well known. The Sedan was designed in the early 1930's as a cheap, reliable "People's Car", meant to propel Germany's population into the modern age. WW II intervened, and though the factory made lots of Kubenwagens for the Wermacht, only a handful of the Sedans were built. In '45, under British occupation, the car was put back into production (due to the dire need for jobs and cars), even though it was considered "worthless" by the Army officers in charge. As production numbers slowly increased, the Army looked for someone to take over the struggling factory, offering it gratis to any taker, but they were turned down by every French and English car company. Even Henry Ford took a look at acquiring the fledgling VW name, but backed off, saying, "It wasn't worth a dime."

Typical German perseverance eventually paid off, and after only 4 years the British turned the factory over to the Germans themselves. The little Sedans were selling like hotcakes all over Europe, and VW felt secure enough in 1950 to introduce a second type, a cargo/transport vehicle simply called the Type-II. The new body and chassis used the standard Sedan drive-train, meaning that while it was badly underpowered, it was very economical to operate.

The Type-II sold well, and was quickly adapted to a number of uses such as Delivery Van, Passenger Mini-Bus (or a combination, called the "Kombi"), Camper, Ambulance, Fire-truck, and Pick-Up trucks with both single and double cabs. Many people adapted their Busses to other uses, and the list is endless. It became the prototypical icon of the Hippy movement in the '60's, as thousands of free spirits traveled the country living out of their flower-painted microbuses. How would anyone have gotten to Woodstock without them?

After almost 2 million examples and 16 years, the Split-Window bus was replaced by the much-improved Bay Window bus in 1967. In 2005, at the prestigious Pebble Beach car show, a near-perfect example of a '66 campmobile sold at auction for an unbelievable $90,000.

The interior of the cab lacked almost everything. I walked out back and checked my '66 camper sitting in the weeds, then scratch-built most of the details. I added door handles, the shelf under the dashboard, a parking brake lever, the door and under-dash kick panels, the heat vent outlets, all the smaller controls, and even the infamous heat-knob just in front of the seat. I cut the driver's side sliding window and positioned it open, and added a few misc. items like a clipboard and maps, just to clutter up the place.

The rear cab wall is separate, and this allows you to glue everything in, get the positions right, then add the wall last. The windows were masked, and I painted the body Testors "Navy Blue-Gray". This looked like an old, faded color you'd find on a beat-up VW. The chassis is flat black. Rubber weather stripping around the windows was painted dark gray, the bumpers flat white, and the small amount of chrome on the kit was toned down with clear flat to make it look slightly oxidized. Hasegawa supplies thin plastic strips for the wooden slats in the cargo bed, so I painted these dark brown with a few light tan scuffs to simulate wear.

I wanted to weather this quite a bit, so a wash of acrylic black was applied to all panel lines and crevices. Over this I applied successive layers of Floquil acrylic mud, sand, dirt, streaking some of it while wet to look like it had been wiped or washed away. I used light gray pastel powder to fade the upper surfaces, and finally found a good use for my useless Tamiya acrylic flat white in simulating bird droppings on the roof. The cargo bed got lots of grime, oil and dirt, and I added more around the wheel wells and the rear deck.

The idea was to load up the cargo bed with junk, and while looking for something suitable I remembered the 1/24 Trumpeter Bf-109G I had started a few months ago. Hmm…what would a DB-605 engine look like sitting in the back of an old VW pickup? I checked my references, and the DB-605 weighed in at around 1800 lbs, so it might work. I made a wood pallet from balsa strips and dripped more grimy black paint on it to simulate engine oil leaks. Dry-brushing this with acrylic mud and dirt paint made it look more worn, and I used heavy thread to tie the engine down to the pallet. I added a small shipping tag to the block, and made a tarp out of coffee filter paper. Next I cut the rear suspension apart and lowered the wheels to make it look like the heavy engine was squashing the poor little VW flat. A few more planks were cut from balsa strip, and sewing pins were bent and pushed in to look like nails.

As another joke, I hand-lettered signage on the side and back with Floquil acrylic Old Concrete. The acrylic won't react with the enamel, and I could wipe off mistakes as I went. "Pappy" refers to me, as I'm always fixing my two son's VW's.

Conclusions: Typical Hasegawa. Everything fit well, and as with most car kits, you need to be careful when fitting the interior and chassis into the body, but there's nothing too difficult. Interior detail is a little weak, but the outside is well done. The glass-covered headlights are well represented, and the side panels are supplied as 3 separate pieces, allowing you to pose them any way you want. An enjoyable build overall, and definitely something different.

References:
    Original VW Bus, L. Meredith, Bay View Books, 1994
    www.thesamba.com, (Archive Section)
    The VW Junkyard (Behind my House!)