This May Be The Greatest Unintended Convergence Of Muppet And Automobile: Cold Start

The Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus T2/Bay Window model enjoyed a really long and rewarding life in Brazil and Central and South American countries long after it was gone in America and Europe, replaced by the later Vanagon-style Type 2 and then the later VW Transporters. In Brazil these buses kept going all the way until 2015, when they were the last rear-engined VWs still made. They were a strange combination of T2 and T1 body panels, and had many details unique to them. Like a black painted fresh air intake panel between the front indicators. This panel, incidentally, had the (allegedly) unintended side effect of making these buses, especially when painted yellow, look just like an automotive rendition of noted Muppet Bert, avid bottlecap collector and pigeon fetishist.

It’s also worth noting that Bert is a well-known example of an Order Muppet, a concept I was discussing with my son Otto last night. My Spirit Muppet is Gonzo, a Chaos Muppet, so the Order Muppets have always seemed strange and exotic to me. If the Bert/Microbus resemblance is intentional, I suspect its because VW felt an Order Muppet would be a better association with a commercial vehicle like the Type 2.

The blacked-out vent panel seems to be called out specifically in this 1975 brochure:

See the vent panel in that illustration down there? They know what they’re doing.

These Brazilian buses are fascinating; note how the rear is the older-style 1950-1967 T1 type, with the corner windows and low engine air intake vents, but those larger 1972-and up taillights have been worked into the design via some protruding bodywork off that rounded corner. It appears to be T2 from the B-pillar forward, T1 (with modifications) to the rear.

There was another unique variant of the Type 2 we never got in America in the brochure:

While we did get the Type 2 pick-ups before the Chicken Tax clucked its way into being and chased away all the fun, foreign commercial vehicles, we never got the one you see there, the wide-bed version, which had a, as you probably already guessed, wider bed.

The bodywork required for the wider bed was pretty minimal; since the Type 2 pickup was always really just a flatbed with folding side and rear panels, VW just made the flatbed floor a bit wider and let the cargo box hang out more over the sides and rear. I guess it was longer, too, not just wider. That, plus the huge storage locker under the bed made this a really useful cargo vehicle.

And yes, in yellow, the front end still looks like Bert.