The Lego Group was founded in 1916 by Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark when he bought an already existing woodwork shop. During the years of economic depression in the late 1920’s, Ole Kirk began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. This inspired him to begin producing toys in 1932: wooden pull toys, piggy banks, cars and trucks. The name LEGO was first used in 1934. It was a contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well."
In 1947, they obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. In 1949 they began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks" and renamed later in 1953 in Lego Mursten, or "Lego Bricks."
Starting in 1955, LEGO started to produce Volkswagen models. A large wooden Volkswagen Bus (in several variations) was produced in 1:33 scale. Furthermore starting from 1955 also plastic VW cars and VW Busses were produced in 1:87 and 1:60 scale to complement the LEGO sets to build houses and other buildings. Starting from 1957 LEGO was asked to produce (for a short period of time) promotional VW Beetles in 1:38 scale for the VW Factory at Wolfsburg, Germany.
The LEGO wooden VW Bus came in three variations as Transporter Bus (LEGO nr. 821), Pickup Bus (LEGO nr. 823) and a Cargo Bus (LEGO nr. 822). There was also a combination box selling all three variations and this had the LEGO nr. 820. The wooden VW Busses were usually painted a two-tone color scheme. Hand painted details such as the door seam lines, VW emblem, headlights, taillights, license plate, side air louvers and windows. They had black rubber wheels on metal axles that were inserted into the body. Some of the VW Busses were painted and had signs to advertised specific Danish Companies. The wooden busses consisted of 2 separate wooden parts; the bottom part was identical for all 3 variations and the top part determined the type of VW bus. The parts were glued together. The Lego catalogue mentions a length of 150 mm, but the busses were in fact 137 mm on the top part and 132 mm on the chassis.
