The video takes you through the most memorable day in the life of Little Red Riding Hood—Rödluvan in Swedish—and along the way, you learn all sorts of details. Like the air resistance experienced by a Volkswagen Type 2-61 Minibus at 43 MPH as measured by Volkswagen GmbH in 1955. Or the wildlife density of the Hundred Acre Wood, showing a surge in the rabbit population. Not to mention the nutrition facts of Grandma with a total caloric value of 10,000 kilocalories, indicating gross malnutrition.

And just consider: this piece was created for a school assignment. Production values sure have risen since the days of junky scissors and overapplied Elmer’s Glue, handed in on physical paper.

When these kids grow up, they will eat the world for lunch, not unlike how the wolf grabs Grandma as sashimi at 1 minute 57 seconds.

Hat tip to Nino Karotta.

This '60 parks very close to the 1960 Studebaker Lark and the 1955 Plymouth Savoy.


Vintage VW Type 2 owners will spend the rest of eternity screaming about how they're not hippies. Hell, real hippies haven't been able to afford these things for many years- they're driving 20-year-old Tercels now.


These vintage travel stickers are great, but I can't help but wonder if they've been there all along or are reproductions.

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It's got what appears to be every available factory and aftermarket option, including roof rack, headlight shades, and passenger step.


And speaking of the step, is it really helpful on a vehicle that is only about 8" from ground to floor? I bet the owner has to take it real easy on the left turns.


It's hard to say whether it's midway through extensive bodywork or just supposed to look this mean.


The interior is pretty minimalist, but it does have a suicide knob and an 8-track player.

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Once again, I'm stymied by the German reluctance to change a vehicle's design (just for the sake of change) when it comes time to tell you the year of this bus; the rear door size tells me it's from the 1956-62 period, but that's as close as I can get without spending the next 10 hours researching turn-signal lens differences. So, VWologists, what year is it?


The spotlight is a nice touch, although I shudder to think of the injuries that would result from slamming into the handle during a minor wreck. Oh, wait, there's no such thing as a minor wreck in one of these things.


It's got the sunroof, which is nice, and the roof rack, which probably isn't of much use on a vehicle with zero load capacity. Still, the rack looks cool.


The owner of this Type 2 also has an equally low right-hand-drive Thing, which I'm going to photograph one of these days. Hey, he knows how he likes his Volkswagens: low, lower, lowest.


The visor definitely works here, though I think a vintage Borgward or Glas steering wheel is called for.


It's literally in the weeds!

We can be reasonably certain that this truck didn't roll out of Wolfsburg with that wooden bed, but it's still pretty well done (by the standards of the Joad family, anyway).


You got a gas gauge and a speedometer and a steering wheel and an idiot light (charge? oil pressure?). You got everything you need right there in front of you, buddy!


Miraculously, there's no obvious rust around the roof rail or the rear window; even California weather manages to rust these areas on old Transporters.


Ground clearance is pretty respectable on these trucks, and the rear engine gives them great traction on dirt roads- why, I reckon a man might even consider using this truck to haul firewood and molasses out to the still!


Just don't hit any trees on the way back from the still... not with nothing but some thin sheet metal and a few inches of air between you and the world.

We like turbocharging, of course, and everyone knows we like Corvairs. Since it goes without saying that the Funk Factor of the VW Type 2 is quite high, combining a turbocharged Corvair engine with a '71 VW Bus... well, how can you resist? And hey, the seller only wants 950 clams for it! OK, killjoys, skip to the part in the description that says it hasn't run since George Herbert Walker Bush was president, and don't forget to wring your hands over the spark plug that got blown out of the cylinder head. The rest of us will overlook those quibbles, as well as the rust-through around the windshield and go straight to the good stuff: '65 Corvair Corsa turbocharged engine, with limited-slip diff, and a whole bunch of spare parts.

Some of you may be hesitant to get a Type 2, what with the whole patchouli-scented hippie stigma and all. And that's fine, because you'd probably be happier screaming down the road in your high-revving Cosworth Vega anyway! For the earth-shatteringly low, low price of... well, the seller doesn't say, you could get a '72 Cosworth Vega plus a '76 Vega GT! The seller isn't so strong in the written-language department, so we're a little puzzled by the intended meaning of "have kit for 76 from summit." But no matter- not when you could have a two-for-one Vega deal for a no-doubt-cheap trade. Sure, the Vega made ZAZ build quality look rock-solid, and we can't even tell if these cars even have engines, but that's why we call it Project Car Hell, right? Just keep saying the magic word "Cosworth" to yourself and you'll be fine. Thanks to Brandon for the tip!

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All right, we're forced to admit that Volkswagen didn't actually offer a Ketchup-und-Mustard paint option on the Type 2. But if they had, we're sure it would have been issued with window blinds just like this one, which resides in Alameda's West End.

Photographs really don't convey the incredible eyeball-searing brightness of these colors. You can see this bus coming for blocks. Hell, you can practically see it coming when it's still over the horizon!

It's a very nicely executed paint job; even the bumpers are painted. This bus in in excellent shape, not a spot of rust, and it parks on one of the busiest streets in town.

I'm not enough of a VW expert to pin an exact year on this Type II, but I'm pretty sure it's from the 1963-67 period. Type 2 zealots, feel free to chime in with your favorite minutiae about this vehicle.

The wooden window blinds really work well on this vehicle. I couldn't see inside so well, as my retinas had been seared into near-total nonfunctionality by the paint job, but I'm hoping the red/yellow theme is carried over to the interior, preferably with shag carpeting raked into a VW insignia after each drive.

Auughhh! It hurts! But in a good way. The best part is that we see neither hippie nor surfer influence to the theme here. The hippie connotation with these vehicles is unfortunate; hippies just liked the Type 2 because it would still run (after a fashion) even if you skipped all maintenance in favor of scratching scabies lesions. As for the surfer thing, real surfers stopped driving Type 2s the moment they were no longer dirt cheap.

Maybe Volkswagen needs to take some inspiration from this fine vehicle and issue a Golf in this color scheme. With huge red emblems, of course. – Murilee Martin

Related:
1957 Volkswagen Transporter [internal]