The Thing from the City of Wolves might be coming back to town. Just in time for Halloween, Volkswagen brand boss Herbert Diess said he?s interested in bringing back the Kübelwagen, the German military equivalent of the Willys Jeep. Diess suggested last week that the company’s upcoming MEB (Modular Electrification Toolkit) battery-electric architecture could be the perfect platform to revive some favorites from Volkswagen history.
With utilitarian vehicles surging in popularity in both the new-car and classic-car markets, Diess said, he is looking at reviving both the dune buggy and the Kübelwagen but not the amphibious Schwimmwagen, which might pose particular problems for the favored EV format. Replacing the Beetle might be the hottest topic of conversation at Volkswagen, but, Diess suggested, the market could be better for a retro utility vehicle. Surges in interest in its H van and Méhari models tempted Citroën to revive its Méhari as an electric concept, and Diess thinks Volkswagen could do something similar.
?MEB is flexible?rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, all-wheel drive?and we have so many emotional concepts,? Diess told us. ?I don?t know if you remember the Kübelwagen. This Thing is a nice car. Then there are all the buggies, the kit cars. We have the bus. We have the various derivatives of the bus. We have so many exciting concepts in our history that we don?t have to do a Beetle.” VW has already confirmed plans for an MEB-based electric...