• Volkswagen Country Buggy

The VW Country Buggy was a buggy, in 1967 1969 by Volkswagen Australasia Ltd.. was built. The Country Buggy, performed as a Type 197, was constructed by the Executive Director of the Company, Rudi Herzmer and the VW engineer Cyril Harcourt for the harsh road conditions in Australia and manufactured in the factory in Clayton (Victoria).

The Country Buggy based on the platform of the VW Beetle manufactured in Australia from which also came the engine. The front axle and the rear axle with gear and countershaft were from the first generation of VW Transporter.

Originally the Country Buggy should be an amphibious vehicle, but VW headquarters in Wolfsburg told not agree with these plans.

In July 1967, the manufacturing and the car began were on the Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand and also exporting some other small Pacific states.

The Philippine Country Buggy were as Sakbayan, a contraction of the words Sasakyan (Eng.: vehicle) and Bayan (Eng.: nation or country) offered. In Pam Grier film Black Mama, White Mama, you can see a number of Country Buggy as police vehicles. Actually, there were Sakbayan because the movie was filmed in the Philippines.

VW Wolfsburg VW developed the 181 based on the Australian model.

A Country Buggy with a fabric roof you can clearly see in an Australian Coca Cola advertising from 1969, in which an Australian band called The Executives emerges.

Overall, the car was not a great sales success. Early copies had a poor reliability and the subsequent market trend for buggy did not exist.

The production was set in 1969; 1,956 units were built in total. Few Country Buggy have survived until today, but the Sakbayan is often restored in the Philippines because there is increasing interest in the original VW Beetle.