The first thing one might ask about this car is, “What is it?” The simple answer is, “It’s a Thing.” This was only true in the United States and Europe, however. In Mexico and South America, the simply shaped vehicle was known as the Safari, and in the UK, it was sold as the Trekker. It was marketed in Italy as the Pescaccia (“beastly fish”).
Before it became a Thing, however, the vehicle was called the Type 181. The multi-purpose–car?–was developed for the West German military in the late 1960s based on the Type 182 Kübelwagen used during World War II. In the fall of 1969, Volkswagen began selling the Type 181 to civilians in Europe. Though the 181 was available as a consumer car, a large portion of the vehicles were–perhaps unsurprisingly–purchased by military forces, in particular, NATO (that stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Volkswagen would later transfer production of the 181 from Germany to Mexico.