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This Is How Volkswagen Almost Made the T1.5 Bus Survive Beyond 2014

The ID. Buzz is not the Volkswagen Bus, but it pays the pioneer a fitting tribute. What most people do not know is that the T1.5 Bus almost made it until the present day. It only failed to do so because Volkswagen could not make it comply with Brazilian safety regulations that entered into force in 2014. It even had two modern exterior design options if things went well, as Luiz Alberto Veiga kindly shared with his Instagram followers.
This is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still alive 6 photos
Photo: Luiz Alberto Veiga/edited by autoevolution
This is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still aliveThis is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still aliveThis is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still aliveThis is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still aliveThis is what the Volkswagen Bus could look like if it was still alive
The designer is someone Brazilian car fans know fairly well. People abroad may have heard about him due to the Volkswagen Fox sold in Europe and the fourth-generation Polo Sedan: he was the man in charge of their design. Veiga was also a mentor for José Carlos Pavone and Marco Antônio Pavone, the two Brazilian twins that sent him car drawings as kids and persisted in becoming car designers thanks to Veiga’s incentive. Both now work for Volkswagen.

Marco Pavone is the Head of Exterior Design at the German carmaker. He was in charge of the ID. Buzz design. It is curious that both the master and his apprentice worked on the different iterations of the iconic vehicle.

If you are not aware of the T1.5 Bus story in Brazil or why it is called that, it was a hybrid of the T1 and the T2 Bus, with characteristics of both generations. The T1 started its production in Brazil in 1953 with CKD kits and in 1957 with local parts. In 1975, the T1.5 was presented and produced until the last day of 2013 despite Volkswagen’s efforts to give it ABS and airbags. It was not economically feasible, so the Kombi died.

Veiga shared the design solutions the car could have presented in the interior and on the front end, as our friends at Quatro Rodas published first. Inside, the dashboard was more modern, similar to the one used by the Volkswagen Gol sold at the time and pretty different from that on the Kombi Last Edition, which marked the end of the world production of the vehicle.

The picture of the design mockup for the front end shows two design propositions, both incorporating a plastic, integrated front bumper. We used the original image and symmetry principles in our favor to imagine how these two hypothetical Kombis would be if they reached production lines.

One of them would keep the round headlights but would adopt what seems to be auxiliary lights connected to the main ones, forming new pieces that look like water drops flowing to the sides of the vehicle. The other one reminds us of the Transporter T4, presented in 1990, with rectangular headlights connected by a thin front grille. Remember that the T1.5 already had a water-cooled engine since 2005. You can check them at our gallery. Just remember to thank Veiga for sharing the images with his followers.

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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
Gustavo Henrique Ruffo profile photo

Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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