A Dutchman called Bernardus Marinus managed a business called ‘Pon’s Automobielhandel’ that sold German products such as Continental tyres and Opel cars. He also wanted to distribute the Volkswagen Käfer (Beetle) as it was popular there. And so in 1947, he became the distributor for Volkswagen in 1947 for Netherlands (Holland). 

The T1 was the first generation van from the house of Volkswagen and was basically an idea of Bernardus Marinus who wanted to make use of their popular people's car Beetle into a van for carrying goods and wares.

This laid the roots to the building of the most famous icon – Volkswagen van. The designation T1a and T1b appeared only in the 1990s for classification and easier understanding of various variants as the original T1 van underwent various modifications.

Several of these VW T1’s were purchased by microcar maker FMR, who owned the brand Messerschmitt for servicing their cars across Germany.