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 V2 T1 plastic VW Busses were designed by Alfred Haesner, actually an architect and not a designer!
The very first LEGO V2 models from 1955 to 1961 were larger (59mm) than the later LEGO V3 models from 1962 -1968 (50mm). The early models came in 2 versions: the VW Passenger Van with side windows and the VW Panel Van. Both versions had indentations of the windows only.
A two piece plastic construction of a VW Bus with solid windows, headlights and rear deck lid. Lower plastic section has some details of the chassis, metal wheels and axles and LEGO is molded into the chassis.
The basic colors are blue, green, light and dark red in combination with a white or yellow bottom or top part of the model. This results in 16 regular color combinations. There are also some rare color versions, being darker or lighter shades of the above mentioned basic colors. There are also some very rare versions with advertising.
