The right wife

A trend that the Volkswagon Bus may not have started, but that it certainly gave momentum to, is the use of nicely-trimmed commercial vans as people carriers. This first took hold in the United States in the 1960s, aided by tongue-in-cheek advertising by Bernbach’s agency. During the hippie era in the United States, the Bus became a major counterculture symbol. There were several reasons: The van could carry a number of people plus camping gear and cooking supplies, extra clothing, do-it-yourself carpenter’s tools, etc. As a “statement”, its boxy, utilitarian shape made the Type 2 everything the American cars of the day were not. Used models were incredibly cheap to buy — a majority were hand-painted (a predecessor of the modern-day art car). Some Bus enthusiasts (especially for antiwar activists) would replace the VW logo with a painted peace symbol up front. Since that time, however, the original 1950–1967 Type 2 (primarily the pre-1956 barn-doors) has become a collector’s item with special variations reaching into the North American five-figure price territory. [Courtesy: Wikipedia]