It wasn’t a mechanic, auto exec or designer who bore responsibility for the creation of the converted VW Type 2 “Binz Bus” that you see above, it was actually, if legend holds, a florist.
Can’t make this stuff up.
As the story goes, a florist felt the single cab of his Volkswagen was lacking in space, so he asked Binz — a company that adapts cars to be functional work vehicles like hearses and ambulances — to modify the vehicle so it could hold all of his plants, workers and materials. The German coachbuilder honored his request and went on building Type 2s til VW took over in 1959.
Before VW took control, Binz managed to produce about 250 of the buses, one of which avid VW collector Matt Jacobson — incidentally the eighth employee at Facebook — was recently able to procure.
Speaking to Petrolicious about his acquisition, Jacobson called his Binz double cab “the holy grail of early first generation VW Transporters” and said he wants to keep it as intact as possible and doesn’t see making any major modifications — except adding seatbelts.
If you want to see what else Jacobson had to say, head over to Petrolicious, but if you’d rather just see one of the perks of being Facebook Employee No. 8, there’s the picture gallery below.
All photography by Ted Gushue
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