This is my bricked version of the often-MOCed Volkswagen T1 transporter/camper/vanagon/bus/bulli/kombi, in a scale in between the official Lego sets 10220 and 40079. These and other toy remakes
(e.g. here), as well as prints on T-shirts and posters contributed to the van's status as a popcultural icon. And, of course, the #vanlife style of living of hippies in the 1960s and 1970s, and hipsters today did its part. What I found intriguing, reading about the van recently, was that the van had originally been the idea of Dutch VW importer Ben Pon Sr., rather than the company’s own engineers, who in 1947 drew up a front-seated rear-engined van based on the beetle. Later, they named a Hannover street in honour of him, where the van and its successors haven been produced. Intriguing this story is moreover, because
PON Holdings today not only sells cars and trucks on an international level, but owns a number of bicycle brands, including Cervélo, Cannondale, Gazelle and Santa Cruz. As I have noted elsewhere
(Peugeot 504 Tour de France), cars and bikes should, as they have before, go together well ...
The bricked MOC of the van uses similar techniques as my
VW T2, such as SNOT in all directions, hidden clips for a curved shape of the nose, as well as a half-step positioning of the roof to create the characteristic roof overhang in front. The camper version features a pop-up roof, kitchen cabinets and storage options in the side doors. The ideas of leveling the mid-section of the roof with brackets as well as of using an upside down 1x4 panel as a rear fender have been adapted from
Brian Williams. The triangular tiles and cut-corner 1x2 slopes as the iconic nose design have been adapted from BlueBrixx-Special
102544,
hachiroku24, and legocampervans at Rebrickable, but placed over angled 2x2 plates mounted on clips, which I developed for my T2 and which make the front more realistic and round looking. To be sure, not as round as
1ssac W.‘s T1, but maybe a little more stable and closer to TLG production type cars.
