The History of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge

The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand was not developed by acquisition, but grew organically within the Volkswagen Group. Officially, the brand was established in July 1995, with a view to pooling all the commercial vehicle expertise and resources of the Group. Although Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles was not established as an independent company, it was organisationally and financially assigned to the Volkswagen brand as the future controlling body for the Group’s international commercial vehicles business. The Group had decided on this step in view of the growing importance of its commercial vehicles business line, which generated sales totalling about 10 billion DM from its main Hanover plant and its international facilities in Poland, Spain, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa in 1995. The product range, including the Caddy, Pick-Up, Transporter and Caravelle as well as the LT and heavy trucks, ref lected the progression of the brand from a lightweight to a heavyweight. In 1996, the Multivan was added to the T4 range, introducing a modern version of a product line that had already formed part of the first Transporter generation.

The history of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles began with the legendary Transporter. Dutch Volkswagen importer Ben Pon first produced a sketch of the new model in 1947. Developed from 1948 onwards as the Type 29, the rear-engined three-quarter tonne box van was presented to the media on November 12, 1949 and went into production in Wolfsburg on March 8, 1950. It created a new vehicle class, and established what has remained the essential cornerstone for the success of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles business to this day.

TRANSPORTER VIELFALT — TRANSPORTER DIVERSITY

The multi-functional Transporter was launched at the right time to satisfy Germany’s hunger for mobility in the era of reconstruction and the post-war economic miracle known as the Wirtschaftswunder. Between 1950 and 1960, strong demand, especially from small businesses in Germany and elsewhere around Europe, boosted production from about 8,000 to 151,000 units per year. In 1954, domestic sales were already overtaken by exports, which were roughly double the sales in Germany from 1958 onwards. The capacity available at Wolfsburg was simply inadequate to meet such strong demand from abroad, especially since booming Beetle sales were keeping the production lines busy. As a result, Transporter production was relocated to the new plant at Hanover, where the first vehicles were assembled in March 1956. In September 1957, production of the Transporter also started at Volkswagen do Brasil, and the versatile all-rounder was to play a key role in the subsequent industrialisation of Brazil.

The Type 2 had already developed its second role, as a family and leisure vehicle, in 1951, when the Samba minibus and a camper van were introduced. In the 1960s, this product group became an export bestseller, especially in the USA, where the Station Wagon defined a new product line and reached its highest sales figures to date as the preferred means of transport of the f lower-power generation. In 1970, Volkswagen sold some 287,000 Transporters, with almost a quarter going to the USA, and the workforce at Hanover had reached 27,744 by the year-end.

The diversification of the commercial vehicle range started in the mid-1970s. With the launch of the LT, Volkswagen ventured into the light truck segment. Its truck know-how was reinforced by a development co-operation agreement with M.A.N., leading to the start of production of a new light truck range at Hanover in 1979. In 1981, Volkswagen gained a foothold in the heavy truck segment in Brazil, having restructured a subsidiary acquired from Chrysler which it then merged with Volkswagen do Brasil to form a commercial vehicle producer. The start of production of 11- and 13-tonne trucks in March 1981 also marked the first step in the internationalisation of commercial vehicle production. The second step was the launch of a pick-up based on the Golf platform. This was first built by Volkswagen of America starting in 1980 and was then put into production, as the Caddy, by Yugoslavian affiliate TAS in 1982.

The expansion of the commercial vehicle range compensated for the export losses in the USA which started in 1972. In the 1980s, only 121,000 third-generation Transporters were sold on the US market. Total Transporter sales remained around 150,000 units per year from 1983 to 1989. Flagging sales of the pioneering model were mainly due to tougher competition and increasing differentiation within the market segment. Volkswagen responded to this trend in 1983 by launching the Caravelle, a well-equipped passenger car which laid the foundation for the independent family and leisure variant of the Transporter range. In addition, Volkswagen added the Taro pick-up, produced in co-operation with Toyota, to its commercial vehicle range. The new models rolled off the production line at Hanover from 1987. The update to the T4, the first Transporter with a front-mounted engine and front-wheel drive, in 1990 was accompanied by extensive automation of the production process.

LKW-FERTIGUNG IM WERK RESENDE — TRUCK PRODUCTION AT THE RESENDE PLANT

Following the establishment of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand, the Volkswagen Group consolidated responsibility for its international commercial vehicles business in Hanover. In September 1997, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles was also given product and profit responsibility for Volkswagen Poznań Sp.z.o.o., a wholly owned Group subsidiary which had developed from a joint venture established back in 1993 with a Polish agricultural vehicle manufacturer. The growing company assembled cars for various Group brands as well as assembling the Transporter from CKD kits supplied by Hanover, and had continually increased its output since start of production. The second step in the internationalisation of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand came on January 1, 2000, when the brand assumed industrial control of Brazilian commercial vehicle operation Volkswagen Trucks & Buses (V WTB) at the Resende site.

In co-operation with seven partners from the local component supply industry, Volkswagen do Brasil had established a new production facility at Resende based on the concept of the modular factory, building trucks in the 7 to 42 tonne weight classes as well as two bus series. Located 160 kilometres to the east of Rio de Janeiro, the Resende facility was officially inaugurated in November 1996. The plant established what was in its way a unique model for co-operation with suppliers within the international Volkswagen Group alliance, extending far beyond just-in-time production. Key suppliers had formed a module consortium with Volkswagen do Brasil, assuming responsibility for module production on-site as well as for vehicle assembly. Only about 200 of the total workforce of some 1,200 were Volkswagen employees. The plant produced vehicles mainly for the Brazilian market and for export to neighbouring South American countries, especially Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.

South America was a key growth region for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. The significance of the brand within the Volkswagen Group had been underscored by the introduction of a brand Board of Management as of July 1, 2000. The “Series 2000” truck range, produced at Resende and including 15 models in a number of different weight classes, boosted sales in Brazil by 44 percent to 16,410 trucks and buses in 2000. Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles also gained ground in the Brazilian light commercial vehicles segment, reaching a market share of 20 percent. All in all, brand sales grew by six percent to almost 329,000 units and pre-tax profit reached DM 514 million. The Brazilian commercial vehicles business continued to see dynamic growth in the years that followed. In 2003, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles sold 23,000 trucks and 6,000 buses, mainly in South American markets, and established itself as the market leader in the Brazilian truck segment. V WTB underpinned this leading position in 2006 when it launched the Constellation truck range, which was also built at the Puebla plant in Mexico and the Uitenhage plant in South Africa.

ENDMONTAGE DES CADDY IN POZNAN — FINAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CADDY IN POZNAŃ

ERFOLGSGARANTEN AMAROK, TRANSPORTER, CRAFTER UND CADDY — GUARANTORS OF SUCCESS: THE AMAROK, TRANSPORTER, CRAFTER AND CADDY

Due to tough economic conditions – but also as a result of the disposal of the South American commercial vehicles business to the MA N Group – the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand’s sales fell from their high of 503,000 units in 2008 to 362,000 the following year. However, new growth was driven by the start of production of the Amarok pick-up in 2008, which since 2012 has also been built in Hanover, and by the launch of the BlueMotion Multivan in 2011. Having delivered 436,000 vehicles to customers in 2010, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles sales in 2011 leapt by 21.4 percent to 529,000 units. By 2014, sales of the Caravelle/ Multivan/Kombi (Station Wagon), Transporter, Crafter, Saveiro, Amarok and Caddy series have fallen to 396,000 units in total, generating an operating profit of 504 million euro.

After almost 65 years of success, the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand is today one of the most highly regarded suppliers of trucks and buses on the international market. The brand has consolidated its pioneering Transporter development by becoming a long-standing market leader in Germany and other European countries. The widely differentiated Transporter range for business and private use comprises five model lines which can be tailored to customers’ individual needs based on hundreds of optional variants. Multi-functional and versatile, offering high standards of quality and value retention, environmentally friendly and reliable, the vehicles embody the traditional values of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand.