The Financial Times reports that the iconic Volkswagen camper van will cease production at the end of the year:
Looming regulations in Brazil, the last country where the van is built, mandate airbags and anti-lock brakes on all new vehicles. Volkswagen says it is not feasible to redesign the van and retool the factory to do this. So, production will stop on December 31, 24 years after European safety regulations curtailed production in Germany.
And so it goes. From Woodstock to Little Miss Sunshine, the camper van, known officially as the Type 2 (Type 1 was the Beetle), has represented America’s free spirit. Unlike the Volkswagen Quantum. Man, that was a bad car.