Top spot: The last wish of the Volkswagen Kombi
The world’s last Type 2 (also known as Kombi) was produced in Brazil in December 2013. To pay tribute to this international icon, Volkswagen do Brasil launched a campaign created by advertisement agency AlmapBBDO Brasil, comprising print and digital media. Through magazines the automaker announced the “de-launching” of the model.
On the Type 2 website users were invited to tell stories they had lived in a Kombi, and the van published a will including 15 last wishes. The final one was to return home and rejoin the family.
A documentary showing the fulfillment of this final wish will premiere Friday, March 28. The film and can be seen online, and is the last piece of an ad campaign that began on September 2013.
Images of the road are mixed with the car’s memories and with stories collected through the website. Among them are Bob Hieronimous tale of having painted the legendary Woodstock Type 2, turning the model into an icon of the counterculture movement in the 60’s and 70’s.
Towards the end of the film, the car finally returns home and meets its family, fulfilling the last wish as written in the will.
The documentary took six months in the making. The film gathers scenes from people who went through special moments with a Type 2, going from Owings Mills, in the suburbs of Baltimore (USA) – where designer Bob Hieronimous receives a gift from the car, all the way across the ocean to Amsfort, in the Netherlands, where the Kombi meets its brother Ben Pon Jr. before finally leaving.
The soundtrack was composed by Lucas Lima.