Original vintage late 1961 Volkswagen advertisement for the German company's iconic Station Wagon.
 
"Think Tall.  Our Volkswagen Station Wagon is only nine inches longer than our little VW Sedan.  Yet it holds more than the biggest conventional wagon.  How?  Perhaps this picture explains it..."
 
Dimensions: Approx. 8 inches wide by 11 inches high.
 
When Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995, Volkswagen remembered the Grateful Dead frontman by running an ad featuring a VW Microbus with a tear streaming from one headlight.  It was an epochal moment when two counterculture symbols came together in tender recognition of their influence on mainstream society.
 
In the 1960s, both Garcia and the Microbus came to represent a growing angst in America about the country’s role as a nuclear superpower and its reliance on commercialism to feed a voracious appetite for more, more, more.  A certain segment of society decided to “turn on, tune in and drop out,” as Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary put it, by focusing on the psychedelic rock music performed by bands like the Grateful Dead and traveling around in Microbuses covered with depictions of peace signs and flowers.
 
“For many people, the VW Microbus became the symbol of protest with Detroit’s overpowered cars and society in general,” says Roger White, curator of road transportation history with the Division of Work and Industry at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  “It was a way of thumbing their noses at the establishment.”
 
The 1960s Volkswagen Microbus, also known as the Type 2, was a versatile and iconic vehicle that became a symbol of the counterculture movement. While praised for its spaciousness, ease of maintenance, and adaptability, it was also criticized for its slow speed and handling challenges on bumpy roads. While a unique and influential vehicle that captured the spirit of the 1960s, it had its limitations in terms of speed and handling, but its versatility, spaciousness, and ease of maintenance contributed to its enduring popularity and iconic status.
 
Known officially (depending on body type) as the Transporter, Kombi or Microbus – or informally as the Volkswagen Station Wagon (US), Camper (UK) or Bulli (Germany), it was initially given the factory designation 'Type 2', as it followed – and was for decades based on – the original 'Volkswagen' ("People's Car"), which became the VW factory's 'Type 1' after the post-war reboot, and mostly known, in many languages, as the "Beetle."
 
The Volkswagen Transporter has been built in many variants.  It may be best known for its panel vans, but it was also built as a small bus or minivan, with choices of up to 23 windows and either hinged or sliding side doors.  From the first generation, both regular and crew-cab, as well as long- and short-bed pickups, were made, and multiple firms sprang up to manufacture varying designs of camper vans, based on VW's Transporter models, to this day.
 
For the first 40 years, all VW Type 2 variants were forward control, with a VW-Beetle-derived flat-four engine in the rear, and all riding on the same (initial thirty years – T1 and T2), or similar (T3), 2.40 m (94 in) wheelbase as the Type 1 Beetle.  
 
As a result, all forward-control Type 2 pickups were either of standard-cab, long-bed or crew-cab, short-bed configuration, and because of the relatively high bed floor (above the rear, flat engine), most pickups came with drop sides in addition to the tailgate.  In 1979, the third-generation Type 2 introduced an all-new, more square and boxy body, and in the 1980s also introduced a raised four-wheel-drive bus variant.
 
From the introduction of the fourth-generation Transporter in 1990, the vehicle layout changed to a more common front-engine one – no longer forward-control – and also changed from rear- to front-wheel drive, with four-wheel–drive remaining optional.  From then on, the platform no longer shared technological legacy with the Beetle, and Volkswagen just called them 'Transporter', and no longer 'Type 2'.  
 
As one of the forerunners of the modern cargo and passenger vans, the Type 2 gave rise to forward control competitors in the United States in the 1960s, including the Ford Econoline, the Dodge A100, and the Chevrolet Corvair 95 Corvan – the last adapting the rear-engine configuration of the Corvair car in the same manner in which the VW Type 2 adapted the Type 1's layout.