The Volkswagen Country Buggy is a small utility vehicle designed and built by Volkswagen in Australia. It used parts from the existing Type 1 and Type 2. Production ran from 1967 to 1968. A derivative of the Country Buggy called the Sakbayan was built in the Philippines for several years until 1980.
History
In the early 1960s Volkswagen Australasia Ltd. began work on a new vehicle for use by the Australian Army that could also be sold to the general public. The military's requirements were for an amphibious four-wheel drive vehicle able to cope with the Australian environment. Design of the car was handled by project head Rudi Herzmer, who was also Volkswagen Australasia's Managing Director, and Engineer Cyril Harcourt at VW Australia's Clayton factory. The project was given the development name Kurierwagen, and some drawings for the project were done by 1964. A prototype was completed by late 1965, and two more followed. Testing of the three prototypes ran from 1965 through 1967, with Test Engineer Paul Kochan recording the results of 50000 km of road tests.
To get corporate approval for the project, two of the prototypes were shipped to Wolfsburg for evaluation. When Herzmer, who had accompanied the prototypes, arrived in Germany with the cars he discovered that VW had begun development of a similar vehicle that would become the Volkswagen 181. Volkswagen Germany gave approval for the project to go ahead, subject to the incorporation of a list of required changes.
Australian Volkswagen dealers got their first view of one of the prototypes at the National Dealer Convention in February 1967, and the public first saw it at the Melbourne auto show in March of the same year. By this time the "Kurierwagen" name had been dropped and the new vehicle, designated Type 197, was now called the Country Buggy.