Okay, it's Friday. I'm surfing a little and I come across this reference to a dutch dude named Ben Pon and it says: "Probably the best thing Pon did for VW was the invention of the bus! When he was at the factory in 1947 he saw a bug chassis with a big loading floor and a cabin above the engine. It was used to move parts inside the factory. The workers called it the Plattenwagen." --You volks have got to see this thing (direct ancestor of Grendel, I believe)-- "...When Pon was back in Holland he talked about importing this car to Holland, but the position of the driver was unacceptable for the department of transportation. Pon started to think about a van based on the bugs chassis, with the driver upfront. On April 24 1947 he made a drawing of his idea and he showed it to the director at his next visit to the factory. The director saw it's potential and in the fall of 1948 the first prototypes where build." http://www.hzeeland.nl/~ploon/hist-nl.html Anyway, it's a very cool page with VERY cool buses! Let me know what you think! 8) Joe ---------------------------------------------------------- Joseph F. Fournier II <jfourni@comp.uark.edu> 501.575.7353 <a href="http://comp.uark.edu/~jfourni/"> Joe Fournier</a> ----------------------------------------------------------
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