After the success of the Willys Jeep as a military vehicle, many European countries began work in the late 1960s on a vehicle dubbed the “Europa Jeep”. However, the progress on the Europa Jeep was slow and expensive, resulting in the German military’s demands for a small, inexpensive military vehicle to be built in the meantime. Volkswagen would respond to this demand, by designing a vehicle that met these requirements, designated Type 181.
In order to design and build the 181, Volkswagen would make use of the many technologies they had acquired when they bought Auto Union. The 181 was designed by Audi and featured a novel four-wheel-drive system and a 1.7-litre engine, which was more powerful and efficient than the outdated two-stroke engine in the existing military vehicles. The car was branded as a Volkswagen due to the German military’s existing relationship with the company, and the vehicle was named ‘Iltis’.
The Iltis was selected by the German military over the more expensive G Wagen and ordered over 2000 units by late 1979. Alongside the German military, other countries would also place orders for the Iltis, which would remain a popular military vehicle for a decade. Alongside the Volkswagen Iltis, Bombardier would also produce the Iltis after receiving the rights to produce it in Canada. The Canadian military would purchase over 2000 Iltis’ between 1983 and 1986, when Bombardier halted production.
However, by the mid 1980s, the Iltis was replaced by the G Wagen as Mercedes had found ways to reduce production costs and provided more customisation, allowing the vehicle to be used by many different sections of the military.
Although the Iltis not overly successful, it was a revolutionary vehicle in other ways. In 1980, the Iltis would win the Paris-Dakar rally, despite only being entered to display its robustness and reliability to the French military. After its victory, Audi began testing the four-wheel-drive system for their mass-production cars. They would eventually repurpose the system for rally cars, resulting in the Audi Quattro, which would go on to dominate the WRC during the 1980s and become an all-time legendary racecar.
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