This is what makes me so confused about these early vans: this colossal engine room is such a terrible use of space and packaging, and everything else about the Type 2 design is so damn good about space utilization and packaging that I just can’t wrap my head around why these decisions were made.

These old, pre-’55 buses are called barndoor buses not because of the side doors that actually do kind of open like barn doors, but because of that engine lid there, which is absolutely massive, like a barn door. …and this is where my questions start, questions for which the only people who could probably have given me any sort of real answer are not just long dead, they’re long dead across an ocean, in Germany.