photo #1809184

During WWII Volkswagen hired Ferdinand Porsche to design a number of light military vehicles for the war effort. This is a rare 1940 A81 closed wagon. There were a ton of variants. The A82/5 for example was a Beetle body with truck bed for hauling cargo or up to eight soldiers. There was also the A82 Flackwagon that had a lightweight Flack Gun installed in the bed. Some were armored command cars with machine gun turrets over the passenger seat and for hotter climates Ferdinand designed the Tropical A82/7 version with tan canvas roll-up top and side doors.Interestingly these vehicles only came equipped with a two-wheeled drive 1000CC engine. To perform up to the rigors of war the German Army stipulated they had to weight under 2100 lbs with four combat ready troops. They must have have stripped these trucks nearly all the way down because a 1972 standard Beetle weights over 1800 pounds.