Germany / Netherlands: Dutch car importer / exporter Bernardus 'Ben' Pon Senior with a 1949 Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle he is about to ship to the United States

Ben Pon was a Dutch businessman. In 1947, Pon's Automobielhandel ('Pon's Car Dealership'), became the first dealer outside Germany to sell vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen.

On August 8, 1947, Pon became Volkswagen's general importer for the Netherlands. During their first year they received 51 Volkswagen Beetles from Wolfsburg. A sketch made by Pon inspired the engineers at Volkswagen to develop the VW Type 2 Transporter (a van, commonly called the 'VW Bus' or 'VW Transporter'), a vehicle that became a cultural icon for the Hippie generation of the 1960s.

In 1949, the first Beetle was shipped to the United States. Half a million were to follow by 1960. A mere two years later there were one million Beetles in the U.S. Eventually this business made Ben Pon a multimillionaire and one of the richest people in the Netherlands.

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