1968 T2 Double Cab (Type 2)

1968: The year everything changed, including the VW Bus. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April. Robert Kennedy in June. The Democratic National Convention in August. And sometime earlier in the year, in the Wolfsburg factory, the first T2 Bus came off the line — wider, taller, safer, with a single curved windshield where the split panes used to be.

The Bay Window had arrived. The T1 was finished. And the Double Cab — always the least symbolically loaded member of the Bus family — was the same truck in a new body. Five people, an open bed, a 1584cc engine. The crew still arrived with the tools. The work still got done.

The T2 transition is one of the most significant moments in Bus history. Not because the T2 was dramatically different from the T1 — it wasn't — but because the new face was the face of a new era. The split window had been the symbol of the Summer of Love. The Bay Window would become something else.

A 1584cc air-cooled flat-four making 47 horsepower — smaller number than the final T1's 50hp, but from a larger displacement. Different character. More torque in the low and mid range. The T2's engine breathed differently from the T1's, more relaxed at highway speeds, more willing to maintain pace on grades.

The T2 platform was wider and taller than the T1. More interior volume in the cab. Better headroom. The single-piece Bay Window gave unobstructed forward visibility that the split windshield couldn't match — no center divider interrupting the view of the road ahead.

Independent rear suspension replaced the T1's swing axle. This was the mechanical advancement that mattered most: the IRS kept each rear wheel more consistently in contact with the road surface, improved loaded handling, and eliminated the swing axle's tendency toward tuck-under in hard cornering. The T2 Double Cab was a genuinely better truck than its predecessor.

The transition moment. The 1968 T2 Double Cab is the first Bay Window crew truck — the opening entry in a new generation of Bus pickups. First-year T2 examples carry the interest that attaches to any beginning. The T1 was the end of something. The T2 was the start of something.

The engineering improvements were real, not cosmetic. The IRS transformed the dynamics. The larger windshield improved visibility and structural rigidity. The wider body gave more usable interior space. These weren't styling changes. They were substantive improvements to a working tool.

The 1600cc engine family that powered the T2 was more modern than the T1's final 1500cc unit — better suited to the emissions and noise regulations that were tightening in both the US and European markets. The T2 was designed to survive the regulatory environment of the 1970s. It did.

1968 was a fracture year in American and European culture. The assassinations. The protests. The violence at the Chicago convention. The Prague Spring crushed by Soviet tanks. The year the optimism of the early 1960s fully curdled into something harder and more complicated.

The Bus family absorbed this cultural shift. The T1 had been the Summer of Love's vehicle — open, optimistic, painted in flowers. The T2 arrived into a more complicated world. The Bay Window's single wide eye had a different expression from the T1's two narrow ones. Less whimsical. More serious. Still honest, but honest about harder things.

The Double Cab, as always, watched this from the commercial sidelines. Fleet buyers switching from T1 to T2 evaluated the payload rating and the service interval. The cultural weight of the transition registered elsewhere. The truck kept working.

Noticeably better than the T1. The IRS made the difference immediately legible: loaded or empty, the T2 Double Cab maintained composure through corners that would have required active management from a T1 swing axle. The rear end tracked the road rather than departing from it. This was a measurable improvement.

The Bay Window gave the driver more glass to look through and a larger view of the world ahead. The center-bar interruption was gone. The field of vision was wider. On a work truck that spent time in tight spaces — construction sites, narrow streets, loading docks — this visibility improvement had practical daily value.

The 47 horsepower from the 1584cc felt different from the T1's 50hp from the 1500cc — same numbers on paper, different character in use. The T2 engine was less frenetic at highway speeds, more comfortable at sustained cruise. The T2 was designed for the road as it actually existed in 1968. It showed.

The same commercial buyers who'd bought T1 Double Cabs, now upgrading to the T2. Fleet managers who'd evaluated the T1's service record and were satisfied enough to continue with the next generation. New buyers drawn to the improved specification and the fresh design.

The T2's American market reception was stronger than the T1's had been. By 1968, VW's US dealer network was established, parts availability was excellent, and the brand's reputation for reliability was proven. The T2 arrived into a receptive market.

A growing category of individual buyers — the lifestyle market — was beginning to discover the Double Cab's unique combination of crew and cargo capacity. Not yet a mainstream phenomenon, but the seeds of the truck's collector future were being planted.

The 1968 T2 Double Cab occupies a specific collector position: first-year Bay Window, transitional historical significance, improved mechanical specification over the T1. Less expensive than split-window T1 examples, but increasingly sought as T1 prices push buyers toward quality T2 alternatives.

Market values (2025): Restored examples: $45,000-$70,000. Excellent drivers: $28,000-$45,000. Good drivers: $15,000-$25,000. Projects: $7,000-$15,000.

The T2 introduced new rust patterns relative to the T1: the windshield surround on the Bay Window is vulnerable at the lower corners where water traps. The wider, taller body has more surface area to develop issues. Check the cab corners, the B-pillar at the rocker junction, and the floor behind the front seats — this area gets water intrusion from the sliding door seal. Engine and drivetrain are fundamentally sound and well-documented.

The 1968 T2 Double Cab is the first Bay Window crew truck — the beginning of a twenty-year production run that would outlast the T1, survive the 1970s fuel crisis, and carry cargo into the 1990s in various markets.

It's a better truck than the T1 by the measures that working trucks are judged: stability, visibility, engine refinement, regulatory compliance. It's less mythological than the T1 by the measures that collectors apply: the split windshield is gone, the swing axle is gone, the direct connection to the Summer of Love is gone.

What remains is a very good truck with a very good face, entering a world that was getting harder and needing dependable tools. The T2 Double Cab was dependable. That counts for a great deal.