1967 T1 Double Cab (Type 2)

1967: The Summer of Love. Sergeant Pepper. Vietnam. And in a Wolfsburg factory, the last T1 Double Cab rolling off the line — though nobody there was paying much attention to the milestone. It was just a truck. It had been a truck for nine years. Next year it would be a different truck.

The Double Cab occupied the specific niche where the Single Cab's practicality met the Microbus's passenger capacity. Four workers up front and in the rear cab seats. Equipment and materials in the bed behind. The crew arrives with the tools. The Double Cab was the solution to this specific problem, and the solution was good enough to outlast the generation that invented it.

This final T1 version carries something the 1968 T2 doesn't: the split windshield. Two panes of glass divided by a center bar. Old-fashioned the moment it was conceived, beloved in retrospect. The 1967 Double Cab is the last year you could get this look on a functional work truck straight from the factory.

The T1 Double Cab mated the standard Bus cab with an additional rear cab section and a shortened flatbed. The front cab held two adults. The rear cab — accessible via its own door — seated three more on a bench. The load bed behind was shorter than the Single Cab's but still useful for pallets, equipment, building materials.

Engine: 1500cc air-cooled flat-four, 50 horsepower for 1967 — the highest output the T1 would ever see. Four-speed manual. Swing-axle rear suspension. Torsion bar front. Drum brakes. The mechanical package was identical to the rest of the T1 lineup, which meant parts were universal and mechanics were plentiful.

The split windshield wasn't a design choice at this point — it was the legacy of the original T1 design, retained through the entire first-generation production run. In 1967, you either had split glass or you had nothing. In 1968, that changed.

The combination of crew capacity and load capacity in one vehicle without the length of a conventional crew cab truck. European jobsites, narrow streets, and urban delivery routes rewarded this. A crew of five with their tools and materials in one compact vehicle that could park where a full-size American truck couldn't.

The 50 horsepower was the most power the T1 Bus family ever produced. Small number by any objective measure. But the Double Cab was a working vehicle, not a performance vehicle. Fifty horsepower moved five people and a bed full of equipment at highway speeds. That was the job. The job got done.

The final-year rarity. Production numbers for T1 Double Cabs were never large — the specialized configuration had a specialized market. Final-year examples of any model carry collector interest. Final-year examples of a body style that disappeared forever carry considerably more.

1967 was the Summer of Love. The counterculture was having its maximum moment. Hundreds of hand-painted Microbuses converged on San Francisco. The Bus was becoming the most loaded symbol in American automotive history. The Double Cab noticed none of this. It was hauling tile for a bathroom remodel in Stuttgart.

The working-class indifference to the symbolism was authentic. Double Cabs went to commercial buyers — small contractors, municipal fleets, agricultural operations, trade businesses. These buyers didn't read the cultural commentary. They read the payload rating and the fuel consumption figures.

In retrospect, this split is historically interesting. The same platform, the same engine, the same factory — one variant becoming an icon of liberation and another variant becoming an icon of honest labor. The Bus contained multitudes. The 1967 Double Cab represents the laboring half of that duality.

The 50 horsepower moved the Double Cab's considerable curb weight with determination rather than enthusiasm. Loaded — five people, full bed — the swing axle rear suspension found its purpose. The additional rear weight improved traction and cornering stability compared to an unladen truck.

The cab was tight for two adults up front and increasingly intimate for three in the rear. Noise levels were high: engine behind the cab, flatbed resonating, cab structure conducting road noise efficiently. Working trucks were not expected to be quiet. Nobody complained.

Today, drive it as intended: secondary roads, moderate speeds, with something worth hauling in the bed. The 50 horsepower is adequate for this use case. The mechanical experience — the gear lever, the steering feel, the flat-four soundtrack — is vivid and direct. No isolation, no filtering, no pretense.

Small construction companies needing a crew-and-tools solution. Municipal service departments needing a versatile light truck. Agricultural operations needing to move workers and equipment simultaneously. Telephone and utility companies. The Double Cab was institutional transportation: functional, durable, unremarkable until it stopped working, which was rarely.

Fleet buyers were the primary market. Few Double Cabs were sold to individuals — the configuration was too specialized for private buyers who had the Microbus as a people-mover option and the Single Cab as a truck option. The Double Cab served the in-between need that most buyers didn't have.

This is why surviving examples are relatively scarce: fleet vehicles get worked hard and scrapped when maintenance costs exceed perceived value. The Double Cabs that survived were often preserved by individual owners who recognized what they had before the rust got serious.

The 1967 T1 Double Cab is among the rarest T1 Bus configurations. Fewer were built than Single Cabs or Microbuses. Fewer survived. The combination of rarity, final-year status, and split-window aesthetics drives prices well above comparable Single Cabs.

Market values (2025): Restored show-quality examples: $65,000-$95,000. Excellent drivers: $40,000-$60,000. Good drivers with honest wear: $22,000-$38,000. Projects: $10,000-$20,000.

Inspect the rear cab section carefully — the additional door and window openings create additional rust entry points that aren't present on Single Cabs. The bed and frame behind the rear cab take stress from loaded operations and deserve close attention. Parts for the rear cab section are harder to source than standard Microbus components. Identify your parts supply before committing to a restoration.

The 1967 T1 Double Cab is the last of something. The last split-window crew truck. The last swing-axle Double Cab. The end of a configuration that hauled workers and equipment across two continents for nine years and asked for nothing but fuel and occasional valve adjustments.

Next year, the Bay Window arrived. The T2 Double Cab was better in many measurable ways. But it wasn't this. It didn't have the split glass or the swing axle or the final-year gravity that comes with being the last of a line.

The Summer of Love was happening outside the factory gates. Inside, they were finishing the last T1 Double Cabs. Both things were historically significant. Only one of them knew it.