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Aagh! How can anyone call any automobile the Thing? That too, officially. You see, nicknames just happen when they are affectionately given away by people – for instance, the Bullnose Morris, Pagoda Mercedes and the BMW Batmobile – but this is absolutely ridiculous.
Actually, looking at this Veedub, the name kind of suits it. Back in the 1970s, how could you define a vehicle like this? It’s built on a passenger car platform yet is highly utilitarian – it could do duties ranging from delivering milk cans to criss-crossing beach dunes. And calling it the Volkswagen Type 181 is like calling the Beetle the humdrum Type 1. So I guess Volkswagen of America thought they’d be clever by half by calling it the Thing. The Mexican operations of VW at least called it the Safari (which couldn’t be used in the US, as GM owned that trademark), the UK version was called the Trekker but the unemotional Germans stuck to Type 181. Type 181? How could someone call any automobile the Type 181? Or even a Mehrzweckwagen... aagh!
Anyway, let me tell you about the most bizarre, er, Thing I have driven in recent times. When you look at it for the first time, you’d think somebody has modified the Hindustan Motors Trekker – the Trekker itself is no beauty queen, so imagine one that’s smaller, more rudimentary and running on an aircooled engine. It’s right out of Planet Weird, yet so thoroughly mundane... with the Type 181, there was no battle between form and function. Form simply didn’t have a chance. It uses ramrod straight body panels as if they were going out of fashion, and calling this kooky thing cute would be stretching things a bit.
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