1968 T2 Microbus (Type 2)

1968: MLK and RFK assassinated. The Democratic National Convention became a battlefield. Vietnam reached its peak of American involvement. Apollo 8 circled the moon. The world was remaking itself with violent speed, and the 1968 VW Microbus Kombi arrived with a new body design — sleeker, more modern, but maintaining every quality that had made it essential.

Bay Window design debuted in 1968. Sleek, modern, but maintaining communal character. The Bus looked different. It remained itself.

1968: The year America tried to understand what it was becoming. MLK and RFK assassinated. Vietnam at its most relentless. The counterculture at its most intense. Apollo 8 circled the moon. And into this extraordinary year, VW introduced the Bay Window design — a new face for the Bus's second decade, modern without abandoning the character that had made it essential.

Bay Window design debuted in 1968. The new body replaced the split windshield with a single curved pane, giving the Bus a more modern appearance while actually improving the driver's forward visibility. The lines were cleaner. The proportions were more refined. The fundamental character was unchanged.

The 1500cc engine continued. The removable rear seats continued. The sliding door continued. The communal interior arrangement — eight passengers in conversation, windows on all sides, a space that felt shared rather than subdivided — continued. The 1968 Kombi was the same Bus that had served the counterculture through the 1960s. It had simply grown up.

Engine reliability legendary across eighteen years. Mechanical systems mature. The platform completely proven. The Bay Window body added refinement without abandoning the formula that eighteen years of buyers had confirmed as correct.

The 1968 transition was the Bus's most significant visual update since the original 1950 design. VW had taken the established proposition and made it more modern without making it different. This is genuinely difficult — updating a design without destroying what made it work. The 1968 managed it.

1968 was year everything changed. MLK and RFK assassinated. Vietnam War at peak American involvement. Chicago Democratic Convention becoming a battleground. The world the counterculture was protesting was responding with force.

The Bus represented constancy during revolution. The movement's vehicle had evolved its body design, but maintained its character — a symbol of continuity in a year that offered very little. Woodstock was announced that year. The vehicle for it was already on the road.

The 1968 Microbus Kombi year saw everything change in American culture. The counterculture that had adopted the Bus as its symbol was being tested. The Bus kept running. Its engineering was indifferent to history while its drivers were making it.

Communal space was the Bus's essence. Perfect for bands, communal living, festival travel. The new Bay Window design improved forward visibility — the single curved windshield gave the driver a more complete view than the split pane had allowed. Eight people sharing journey meant the same thing in 1968 that it had in 1950.

The Microbus Kombi's engineering served counterculture values with the confidence of an established relationship. By 1968, the counterculture and the Bus were well acquainted. The new body design brought the vehicle into the late 1960s without asking its admirers to update their relationship with it.

The 1968 Kombi buyer profile included the full range of Bus users who had accumulated over eighteen years of production: families, small businesses, institutions — and the counterculture's enthusiastic adoption, now in its peak years.

Original 1968 owners got platform perfectly suited to lifestyle. The Bus enabled the Woodstock generation in the most literal sense: carried them to festivals, housed them at communes, moved their bands and their gear and their causes across a country in upheaval.

Bay Window represented evolution without abandonment. Design proved timeless in ways that 1968's turbulent aesthetic landscape couldn't have predicted. The Bay Window Buses carry the mythology of the late 1960s in their new body — all the cultural weight of the era, plus improved forward visibility.

Values for 1968 Bay Window Kombis range from $40,000 for honest drivers to $130,000 for excellent examples. The Bay Window premium over late T1 cars reflects both the design's popularity and the year's historical significance. Inspect rust carefully — the new body had different seam configurations and new potential failure points.

Original 1968 owners got platform perfectly suited to lifestyle. The Bus enabled Woodstock generation's dreams and disasters with equal reliability. The vehicle that carried people to the Summer of Love and back from it.

Gen X recognized 1968 Buses as representing vehicle at cultural significance. The Bay Window debut at the year of maximum counterculture intensity — new body, unchanged soul, carrying the movement through its most consequential year.

Today's collectors appreciate 1968 as representing Bay Window debut at perfect moment. The new design at the peak of the old story. The evolution that confirmed rather than replaced what the Bus had always been.