No, the picture above is not that of a fully restored Volkswagen Bus . It is actually a 2012 Volkswagen Kombi that is still in production in Brazil... for now. Due to tougher safety regulations, the Kombi's days are numbered as Brazil's government is requiring all new cars to come with dual front airbags and anti-lock brakes as standard equipment. No word on a replacement for the long-lived Kombi, but it won't be the VW Bulli Originally known as the Type 2 , the iconic Volkswagen van first debuted back in 1950. Matching its classic styling, Car and Driver points out that the Kombi replaced the original air-cooled engine with a liquid-cooled mill only within the last decade. Volkswagen has quite a history of squeezing every last year out of its designs between the original Beetle that was produced from 1938 through 2003 in Mexico and the MkI Golf that was introduced in 1974 and ended production in South Africa in 2009.