KARL SIEMENS GmbH was located in Lüdenscheid, Germany. They produced in the late 1950’s and 1960’s thermoplastic toys, which were intended as giveaways for other manufacturers of other products.
A two piece soft plastic toy in the shape of a VW Transporter or Passenger Bus. Top section made with or without cut out windows. The lower body section forms the chassis with black plastic wheels on metal axles. These toys were not primarily intended as toys, but intended to be filled with candy or other products; we also have seen tobacco!
SIEMENS has presented their products at a fair in Vienna, Austria named WIM (Wiener Internationaler Messe). For that occasion they had produced boxes with 3 VW Busses in it and a sticker with the WIM logo on it. Those boxes regularly surface, so therefore, many collectors believed that WIM was an Austrian producer of the toys. The buyers had the choice between several color combinations: two-tone with black wheels. The open window version most probably was meant for candy or chocolate, whereas the closed version was used for products like tobacco. We have seen stickers of Frankonia (chocolates) and writings on top of the roof with Hempelmann Express (tobacco). The Hempelmann express has the writing "50 gr Feinschnitt" on the chassis, meaning that it contains 50 gr of fine tobacco product.
