>Help! >Donate >Buy Shirts! >Register >Control Panel >Log in
See all Samba banner ads | Advertise on TheSamba.com
| Home | Classifieds | Gallery | Forums | Community | Archives | Technical |
|
||||||||||||||
| A-pillar | The roof support metal on either side of the front windshield. Also see B-pillar, C-pillar, and D-pillar |
| Aardappelkist | "Potato Box" in Dutch. In the Netherlands, a nickname for the post-1967 Transporter. |
| Acapulco |
Version of the Type 181 Thing. The brightly-colored
Acapulco had a fringed top, running boards, and a large rack for luggage. It
was intended to be a tourist vehicle around Mexico's resort hotels, hence
the name.
 |
| Accessories | Optional items sold either with a VW, either factory or dealer installed, or as aftermarket parts. Examples include: Blaupunkt or Sapphire radio, mudflaps, roof rack, gravel guards, gas heater, or rims. |
| Adjuster | Small nut/bolt/plate arrangement that could be welded into a VW Beetle or other model front end to allow for height adjustment. See dropped beam |
| Adventurewagen | An aftermarket camping conversion package for the Transporter. It was manufactured in the U.S. until the 1980s. |
| Aftermarket | Denotes a product produced for the Volkswagen automobile by not by Volkswagen itself. |
| AG | German: The acronym for "Aktien Gesellschaft" - in Germany, a public stock corporation, as in Volkswagen AG. |
| Air Cooled | Typically refers to the cooling design used by the Volkswagen engine where the heads and oil are cooled by air propelled by a fan which was, in turn, rotated at a given speed by an attachment to the engine crankshaft. |
| Albert |
Aftermarket accessory maker, usually associated with mirrors from the
1950s-60s. |
| Alf | An English cartoon character who appeared in the 80s. Alf was a VW fanatic and appeared regularly on the pages of VW Motoring magazine. Cartoons were drawn by Pete Dixon and Rob Cole. The ideas were supplied by Dave Cantle. Over 80 original cartoons exist. |
| Allen bolt |
Bolt with a hexagonal socket head that uses an allen aka hex key to tighten
or loosen it. |
| Ambulance |
Conversion for the VW Bus to allow for
the transport of the sick or infirm from an external location to the
hospital. Known as the Krankenwagen in Germany.
A factory-built special model of the Transporter, introduced in 1951, the gas tank and spare wheel were relocated, the
decklid was made smaller, and the rear cargo hatch was hinged at the bottom so that a stretcher could be passed in from the rear.
 |
| Ambulance Divider |
Solid divider window installed as standard in Ambulance
conversions. Consisted of a sliding glass window with a small handle
surrounded by a metal frame. Optionally available to other vehicles
and has been observed installed in a number of Kombis and
Standards as well
as an original German Police Bus. (Visible near top) |
| Ambulance Fan |
The ambulance fan was standard on Krankenwagen
conversions, and was an optional accessory (M-code 121) available for the
VW Transporter from 1952 thru 1967. For Barndoor
Buses, the installer cut a hole in the front peak of the roof, just above
the windshields. When VW updated the Type 2 design (March, 1955
through 1967) and overhead fresh-air
vent was made standard on all
models, the ambulance fan assembly replaced the removable cover between the
passenger and driver sun visors. The option consisted of two fans, a
three-position switch, a frame assembly to house the fans, and a replacement
cover plate with indentations to allow clearance for the fan bodies.
 |
| Ambulance Step | Cargo-area step. Standard on
Ambulance vehicles. This step had a small foot pedal that would pop
the step out when pressed to aid in loading the Ambulance stretcher.
It was also available as an optional accessory on other vehicles and came
in 2-styles: Belly-pan and non Belly-pan, to account for the
differences in the undercarriage of various Buses. Some ambulances
also had spring-loaded front door steps. |
| Amescador | Contraction for AMES CAmper DORdrecht. This was a third-party aftermarket camper conversion made in Dordrecht, Zuid-Holland Province, southwestern Netherlands, by the country's largest VW dealer, Ames, starting in 1968 with a bunch of '67 Buses. |
| Apron | Bottom "U" shaped piece
of metal on the front and rear of the Beetle, between the bottoms of the
fenders. On a Bus, it usually refers to the bottom piece of metal in
the rear above the exhaust. See also crank
apron. |
| Arcomobile | VW Bus camper conversion with
square-shaped raised roof
 |
| Asfalt-Bubbla | Swedish: "Asphalt Bubble". A common nickname in Sweden for the Beetle sedan and convertible. |
| ASI | See Riviera |
| ATF | Automatic Transmission Fluid |
| Auf-Zu | German: "open-closed". 1. Before Beetles had gas gauges, the gas tank had a one-gallon sump, providing an emergency reserve. When your car began to sputter, you simply switched a lever on the bulkhead down by your feet from "zu" to "auf", then proceeded directly to a gas station. See also Reserve Valve 2.Used on early Type 3 engine lid covers to indicate the position of the engine lid latches  |
| Auto sleeper | A third-party, aftermarket camping conversion for the Transporter. |
| Autogerma S. p.A. | The first official Volkswagen importer for Italy in 1954. Founded by a German citizen, Mr. Gerhard Gumpert in Bologna. Then Autogerma moved to Verona (Romeo and Juliet's city) closer to Germany port of entry: Brennero. In 1984 became directly property of Volkswagen A.G (www.autogerma.it) In 2007 the name changed to Volkswagen Group Italia S.p.A. |
| Autostick | Semi-automatic transmission used in Beetles and Karmann Ghias. Uses a torque converter, paired with a 3 speed standard transmission which uses a vaccum-operated clutch to shift between gears. Put your hand on the gearshift, the clutch disengages, move the shifter to the gear you want, let go, and the clutch engages. The torque converter lets the engine run while in gear so you can drive the Beetle like it has an fully automatic transmission in it. 3 speeds were used: super low, low and high. |
| die Autostadt | German: "The Automobile
City". One of
the original names of the Volkswagenwerk company town. It was also called
"die Stadt des KdF-Wagens", which translates to "the City of the Strength-through-Joy Cars". See
Wolfsburg. |
