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The Volkswagen Plattenwagen was never sold to the public, and was used only by the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg as a parts runabout.<br/><br/> When Dutch Volkswagen importer Ben Pon visited the Wolfsburg factory in 1947, he spotted a Plattenwagen based on the Volkswagen Beetle. This gave him the idea for a Volkswagen commercial vehicle which would become the future Volkswagen Transporter.
The Volkswagen Plattenwagen was never sold to the public, and was used only by the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg as a parts runabout.<br/><br/> When Dutch Volkswagen importer Ben Pon visited the Wolfsburg factory in 1947, he spotted a Plattenwagen based on the Volkswagen Beetle. This gave him the idea for a Volkswagen commercial vehicle which would become the future Volkswagen Transporter.
The Volkswagen Plattenwagen was never sold to the public, and was used only by the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg as a parts runabout.<br/><br/> When Dutch Volkswagen importer Ben Pon visited the Wolfsburg factory in 1947, he spotted a Plattenwagen based on the Volkswagen Beetle. This gave him the idea for a Volkswagen commercial vehicle which would become the future Volkswagen Transporter.
Ben Pon was a Dutch businessman. In 1947, Pon's Automobielhandel ('Pon's Car Dealership'), became the first dealer outside Germany to sell vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen.<br/><br/> On August 8, 1947, Pon became Volkswagen's general importer for the Netherlands. During their first year they received 51 Volkswagen Beetles from Wolfsburg. A sketch made by Pon inspired the engineers at Volkswagen to develop the VW Type 2 Transporter (a van, commonly called the 'VW Bus' or 'VW Transporter'), a vehicle that became a cultural icon for the Hippie generation of the 1960s.<br/><br/> In 1949, the first Beetle was shipped to the United States. Half a million were to follow by 1960. A mere two years later there were one million Beetles in the U.S. Eventually this business made Ben Pon a multimillionaire and one of the richest people in the Netherlands.