VW Bulli, 65 years ago, the first model built in Hanover

There are models that leave their mark, that have entered the hearts of entire generations and that manage to maintain their charm over the years. One of them is definitely the Volkswagen Transporter T1, better known as the Volkswagen Bulli, which is simplyMarch 8 2021 celebrated the 65th anniversary of the launch of production at the Hanover-Stocken plant.

From that day on, they were built at the same plant. 9,2 million Bulli vehicles that have evolved over the years into aesthetics and mechanics. As ID.BUZZ, the electric reimagining of the legendary minivan, is expected to hit the market in 2022, let's walk through the milestones of Bulli together.

The birth of the project

To tell the story of the Bulli, we need to go back a little further to 1956. In fact, we are in 1947 when, during a visit to the Wolfsburg factory, Ben Pon, Dutch car importer Volkswagen notices a car with the same floor as the Beetle, which is used to transport goods in production halls.

Quickly scribbled on a piece of paper, Ben decides to ask a leading Volkswagen specialist to make a light commercial vehicle for transporting goods or people in series production, using the only platform available to the German company. This is how the project was born type 2 which was named Transporter Typ 1949 in 2 and went on sale in March 1950.

Demand grows more and more

As we already said, the project was born on the basis of the Beetle. The first Volkswagen Transporter series, dubbed T1 Split (from splitscreen to indicate splitting the windshield in half) is powered by an air-cooled, 4-cylinder, 1,1-liter boxer engine with 25 hp.

Huge initial success thanks to his skills as reliability and versatility which draw entrepreneurs' attention to freight transport and its charm (revisited in hippie style on the US West Coast) are driving demand so high that one plant in Wolfsburg is no longer enough for production.

Since then, more than 235 cities in Germany have started to apply for the location of the new Volkswagen plant, and Heinrich Nordhoff, first CEO and then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Volkswagen, decides to opt for Hanover... A strategic choice considering the proximity to the canal that connects Reno to the Elbe and the availability of a railway station for freight traffic.

The plant was built in just over 1 year

Work began in the winter between 1954 and 1955, when 372 workers became 1.000 in March of the following year. You have to rush to meet customer requests. After just 3 months, they are continuously working on the construction of the plant. Workers 2.000, 28 cranes and 22 concrete mixers that mix more than 5.000 cubic meters of concrete daily.

Meanwhile Volkswagen begins training 3.000 future employees who will take care of the production of the Bulli (Transporter T1 Split) at the new plant in Hannover-Stocken. On March 8, 1956, a little more than a year after the start of work, mass production began, which over these 65 years exceeded 9 million vehicles in 6 generations.

It didn't end there

Constantly updated website in Hanover new deep modernization and the transformation of the various departments in line with the next major revolution: in the same year 2021, production of a new generation of Multivans, expected to be on the market by the end of the year, and ID.BUZZ, the first fully equipped vehicle, will begin. an electric light commercial vehicle from the Wolfsburg house.

In this case, it is planned to enter the European market at 2022 and it won't be the only battery-powered car to be built at the Hanover plant, with three more electric models in the pipeline.