The Volkswagen Plattenwagen – A team of experts reconstructs original Plattenwagen from 1946.
Experts from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles have reconstructed the first Plattenwagen using rare original parts from the 1940s. In the early post-war period, the Plattenwagen was designed for internal transport tasks at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg. The commercial vehicle probably also provided the initial impetus for the Transporter T1 – sketched by Ben Pon Sr. on April 23, 1947. As this is a great piece of VW history, and a big part of the Pon legacy. Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will show the newly built Plattenwagen at the ‘3rd European Barndoor Gathering and Vintage VW Show / Ben Pon Show 2023!
The Plattenwagen will be on display inside the PON Photo-Expo Shelter B526 on-site.
The newly built Plattenwagen bridges almost eighty years, as it is a detailed reconstruction of the original version of this van: the Plattenwagen were built from 1946 onwards - Volkswagen was still under British military rule - using parts from the Type 82 Kübelwagen and the Type 1 Beetle. Originally designed as a temporary solution, the last Plattenwagen were still in use in the plants until the 1990s. There is no exact record of how many of these rear-wheel-drive vehicles were built, as they were not officially developed for series production. The Plattenwagens that still exist today were heavily modified in the course of time. This made it all the more important for the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles team to recreate this archetype of the brand exactly as it was 77 years ago.
Historically speaking, the panel van could also have been one of the impulses for one of the greatest icons in automotive history: the Transporter T1 (Volkswagen Type 2). In terms of design, the two vehicles are definitely linked by the four-cylinder boxer engine located in the rear. The 1.1-litre engine now used in the rebuilt Plattenwagen dates from 1944 and develops an output of 18 kW/25 hp. Power is transmitted to the rear axle via a 4-speed gearbox manufactured between 1943 and 1944.
All other Volkswagen series parts - the shortened frame of the Type 82, the speedometer, the axles, wheels and hubcaps as well as the headlights, the rear lights and the tank - were also produced between 1940 and 1946. The rare original parts come from the Volkswagen Automobile Museum Foundation, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Oldtimers and the Christian Grundmann VW Collection, who also assisted with the assembly.
The idea to build a Plattenwagen in the original version was born in 2018 by Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge Oldtimer. VWNO found support from both active and retired colleagues as well as from the members of VWNO friends of the Volkswagen AutoMuseum Foundation. In addition, contemporary witnesses were interviewed who had experienced the panel van still in use. In 2020, the project got underway.
One of the challenges: There were no longer any original drawings of the panel van - not least because there had never been a Volkswagen development order (EA) with a corresponding EA number for the van, which was only used in the factory. Without further ado, a Volkswagen engineer returned from retirement to his computer and transferred various photos and the dimensions of still existing vehicles into a CAD programme (Computer Aided Design) so that the team could reconstruct the new Plattenwagen exactly. In addition to the old parts, various components were newly made. These include the tubular frame built in the VWN development department, the sheet metal parts and the electrics. The new wooden boards for the loading area of the panel van came from a forest near the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg.
Based on the researched historical dimensions, it was clear that the new Plattenwagen should follow the dimensions of the 1946 original versions. Since the vehicles were built by hand at that time, there were always certain deviations in the dimensions. However, the now realised wheelbase of 1.90 metres is just as realistic as the realisation of the 1.60 metre wide and 1.94 metre long loading area. One of the advantages of the Plattenwagen is its very small turning circle of only seven metres - ideal for manoeuvring in the Volkswagen factory halls.
Today, the Plattenwagen has a very special focus because it gives a sense of the humble beginnings of today's globally successful Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand.
The new, old Volkswagen factory van thus also becomes a tribute to all those who in 1946, with great confidence, created a new world from what was still there - sometimes hardly more than old water pipes for the substructure of the loading area of the panel vans of the time. A true utility vehicle.
The Plattenwagen will be on display inside the PON Photo-Expo Shelter B526 on-site.
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