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Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:47 am

EZ Gruv wrote: 78Kombi wrote: are those rear side windows the elusive 2 ply plexi ones???

Looks like.
theres one in the rear hatch too , Is this Westafalia or VW?
I ask cus im curious about the situation of mixing after market vendors on their proto type..assuming these vehicles were always in the hands of the company (VW)

Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:05 pm

chabanais wrote: Almost all of these may be found in the book VW Transporter & Microbus: Specification Guide 1967-1979. Plus there is stuff written about them and more photos:

http://www.amazon.com/VW-Transporter-Microbus-Specification-1967-1979/dp/1861267657/ref=pd_sim_b_16

Totally, it's a fantastic book, pages 12 and 13 are all about the Elektro-Transporter with loads of pictures, It wasn't a prototype, it went into production, range was 50-80km, max speed 80km.

RatCamper wrote: I used to have a club newsletter with a photo of the engine bay in the electric prototype. It was destroyed with most of my '80s vw mags when I foolishly kept them in my broken bay. Water damage

I found a picture of the Siemens engine in webarchive here:

Full low down on the spec here:

http://web.archive.org/web/19990221070351/www.mindspring.com/~deasterw/79dd/manual.htm

Dash pod:

As well as the European market, apparently 10 were made for the US market in 1979, click on the broken image links, most of them still work, see here:

http://web.archive.org/web/19981206211327/http://www.mindspring.com/~deasterw/79dd/79dd.html

As for the cabriolet, that was commissioned by a German TV station to ferry celebrity guests onto a weekly lottery entertainment show called "Der große Preis" (The Grand Prize), however other sources say it was for a show called "Ein platz an der sonne" (A place in the sun)! - so German trivia question for the day, which one is correct, or is it both? :-k

Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:17 am

78Kombi wrote: BusterBrown wrote: GeoffP wrote: I love all the threads of the prototype VW's, VW30, VW38 and barndoors but it got me thinking... I don't recall seeing any photos of early Baywindow prototypes?

If you have any odd ball prototype VW Bay window shots post them up!
The way I see it the split bus was just a prototype until VW made it perfect in 1968 :D

I believe you answered your own question. But I guess we're a bit biased. 8)
hmm in the rear window too..so was this provided by Westfalia or VW?

They are from Westfalia. A winter pack option as such, and popular in Northern European buses along with thicker lined curtains and a heater.

Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:42 am

police speed control

Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:58 am

rogacek wrote:

That's totally wild!!! :shock:

A Bay/Splittie Combo!

Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:18 am

has anyone got a pic of the bay window gas turbine Dash board please

Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:49 am

rsbadura wrote: not a VW - but it looks like - a "Palten Diesel"
1958 - no split window, but not realy a T2 baywindow

The prototype is interesting, and shows how the split window bus could have been restyled earlier. Even during the 1950s, a split windshield was out of style, and VW could have gone this route . They still could have kept the lower front styling the same, with the huge V between the headlights . The large window behind the middle doors reminds me of the early Ford Econolines, and would have looked nice on an earlier VW bus. It's interesting that the bug got bigger tail lights, bigger windows all around during the late 50s and mid 60s, while the bus only got a larger rear door, and larger tail lights .

Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:03 am

78Kombi wrote: are those rear side windows the elusive 2 ply plexi ones???
also that DOKA synchro is so sweet!

Look at the rims...early bay full moons....

Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:48 am

I've just noticed that the gas turbine bus appears to be based on an 1972 prototype shell with the unusual air-intake louvres as detailed on page 29 of Vincent Molenaar and Alexander Prinz's book "VW Transporter and Microbus Specification Guide 1967-1979".

Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:42 am

rsbadura wrote: A cabriolette prototype :lol: from the VW museum in Wolfburg/Germany:

pretty sure that one was for in-factory shuttling of VW dignitaries, execs, visitors, etc... I've seen them around in other photo threads

Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:22 pm

rsbadura wrote: not a VW - but it looks like - a "Palten Diesel"
1958 - no split window, but not realy a T2 baywindow

I love how the passengers are all eerily uplit. It's as though the photographer setup his camera and then noticed he couldn't see the passengers faces. His solution? Uplight them so they look like they are in a Hitchcock movie :shock: .

Sun Jul 31, 2016 7:32 pm

TomWesty wrote: rsbadura wrote: not a VW - but it looks like - a "Palten Diesel"
1958 - no split window, but not realy a T2 baywindow

I love how the passengers are all eerily uplit. It's as though the photographer setup his camera and then noticed he couldn't see the passengers faces. His solution? Uplight them so they look like they are in a Hitchcock movie :shock: .

1958 World Fair (Expo) was in Brussels. I wonder if this had something to do with that. Germany had a big pavilion that year.

Below is a photo is one collected by a Bill Cotter from a World Fair forum on the Internet. The photo is supposed to be from the 1958 Brussel's World Fair.

Here is a photo of the front of the 1958 Swiss Pavilion. Did see what looks like one bus parked outside.

Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:15 pm

damn, the world fair is so old. I vaugely remember seeing some pictures of various transporters used there over various years.

That '67 looks so pure and probably has a lot of bulletproof parts that will turn the next century. But head rests?

Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:00 am

thewalrus wrote: Some prototypes I found in the gallery.
Side loader. This would have been cool:

More than "would have", this was an actual production model. There was one for sale here on The Samba for a couple of years, in Germany:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1569649

I seriously lusted after that one. The bed folds back so that not only do you load from the side, but you get the "low boy" in the middle instead of the storage compartment. So -- not a prototype.

Here is a cool prototype, that was also for sale here... An Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) / Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) electric demonstration vehicle:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1596815

Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:49 am

EZ Gruv wrote: 78Kombi wrote: are those rear side windows the elusive 2 ply plexi ones???

Looks like.

Still available for the side windows from places like Guenzl in Germany

Thu Sep 01, 2016 12:00 am

This via Dave Brown on the Kombi Club FaceBook page. Apparently from a German Webpage, dates from 1960(!) as the EA114. This is before the EA 141 development order in 1965. I'll try to find out more! Ugly as...

Edit: info is from Samba member rsbadura's website, in German. Close-up photo is from a publication ( "Historischer Kraftverkehr" Heft 6/2000)

Translated from German.
"VW internal prototype EA 114 1960 with the following features:

- Rear engine with air intakes at the front
- Spare practically behind flap on the front
- Sliding door that was available from the T1 from 1963 and the T2 standard equipment
- Large windows on the sides (opposite the small discs on T1) and
- Panoramic windscreen, which was then taken over at T2.

The T2 was later than EA 141 (Development Order) in 1965 ... but the EA 114 had already anticipated first features before disappearing in the evidence room of VW. Of the vehicle, there are only a few pictures. Whereabouts of the vehicle is unknown - probably scrapped. "

Thu Sep 01, 2016 6:30 am

IMO, from the looks of all the other vehicles, methinks it was a Brazilian design. :-k

Thu Sep 01, 2016 6:55 am

Wow! Thanks for posting that Phil. I’ve always enjoyed reading about the VW prototypes. I wonder what it was like mechanically? It looks like it has swing axles on the back. Did it have have the cooling fan like the Beetle or did it utilise the Type 3 system for a lower profile engine bay? I know some of prototype cars from the early ‘60s used coil springs, I wonder if this does too.

The cars in the bottom photo are definitely German prototypes. The ones in the foreground look like EA97 prototypes, which nearly went into production in Germany during 1965. you can read about them in Hans-Rudiger Etzold’s book “The Beetle - The Chronicles of the People’s Car”. Apparently they build the first 200, then decided to abandon the project for Europe and ship the production line over to Brazil. The Brazilian Type 103 version was launched in 1969.

The dark coloured cabriolet in the second row is EA158, a coil sprung, unitary construction design that evolved into the 411/412 and what was to be a Type 3 replacement.

I believe the bottom photo was taken in 1967 as part of a feature in Der Spiegel magazine.

Thu Sep 01, 2016 6:58 am

There is a whole thread on the Elektro Transporter here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=279096&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Really need to get those dash and engine bay pictures copied and loaded up onto the Samba galleries before they disappear forever off of the internet archive.

Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:27 am

GeoffP wrote: ...
The way I see it the split bus was just a prototype until VW made it perfect in 1976 :D FTFY. 8)