Another Trip Down Diesel Street

A further stroll down Wolfsburg’s Diesel Street quickly unearths a lovely array of Transporters well worthy of a word or three.

- Richard Copping

Let’s be honest, on our first outing to the Stiftung AutoMuseum on Diesel Street we didn’t make a great deal of progress. Interesting hopefully, but hardly speedy! ‘Must do better’, came the editorial edict. Down to business then, the emergency business and one of Wolfsburg’s own, the factory built core model Ambulance.

From the word go, the Ambulance was seen as one of the core models in the range. An explanation regarding why an inevitably niche market vehicle like an Ambulance should be so significant in VW’s master production plan is always absent. Consider the figures; the ‘best’ year for the Ambulance in split-screen terms is 1965, when 864 vehicles were built. By comparison, the delivery van clocked up 48,481 units in 1964 and even the expensive Samba attracted 18,790 vehicles in 1966.

The coachbuilder Miesen of Bonn were up and running with a transporter based Ambulance within six months of the first mass-production delivery vans coming off the assembly line. The problem for them was that without rearward access rigid stretchers had to be manoeuvred through the side loading doors. VW set to work creating that vital rearward access by reducing the size of the engine compartment, relocating the spare wheel and more importantly the fuel tank, with the result that the first factory Ambulance rolled off the production line in December 1951. Amazingly, the basics of rearward access were not extended to other models in the range until March 1955.