Ben Pon (senior)

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Ben Pon (senior) was a Dutch businessman. His enterprise was Pon's Automobielhandel ("Pon's car dealership"), which after World War II in 1947 was the first dealer outside of Germany to import vehicles of German car producer Volkswagen.

Since 1898, Ben's father Mijndert Pon had owned a shop selling sewing machines, household articles and tobacco goods at Arnhemseweg (Arnhem Road) in Amersfoort.[1] Later he added Opel bicycles and motorized bicycles to his range of goods. As from 1920, Pon also sold Opel and Ford automobiles as well as Continental tires.[2] In 1931, the brothers Ben and Wijnand Pon renamed the shop Pon's Automobielhandel. On August 8, 1947[3], Pon became general importer for Volkswagen for the Netherlands. During their first year they received 51 Volkswagen Beetles from Wolfsburg.[4] The company also became an importer of Porsche-cars in 1948.

With a drawn sketch, Ben Pon senior gave the crucial impact to Volkswagen to develop the VW Type 2 Transporter, and he is thus considered as one of the fathers of this car that influenced the lives and times of a whole generation. In 1949, the first Beetle was shipped to America; half a million were to follow this first one until 1960, and only two years later again there were one million Beetles in the USA.[5] It is for sure that Ben Pon was not insignificantly involved in this success as the first exporter via the Netherlands into the US. It remains to be proved, however, that he actually sold the first Beetle in the USA because he could not pay his hotel bill after not having found a partner for distributing Volkswagens.[6] The dealer section of the enterprise was separated from the company and ran under the name of Pon Dealer as from 1971. Audi also became a partner of Pon's. The enterprise continued to grow, and in 1980 Pon Holdings was founded, which is up to this very day an exempt private company with approximately 9,000 coworkers.

Ben Pon's son is former Formula 1 racing driver Ben Pon.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pon Dealer
  2. ^ Pon in bedrijf, magazine of Pon Holdings, 2006, p. 6ff.
  3. ^ ebd. Pon
  4. ^ Peter Lanz, "Das große Käfer-Buch" (The big book on Beetles), Munich and Bergisch-Gladbach, 1985, ISBN 3-404-60141-6, p. 165
  5. ^ Lanz, ibid., p. 166f.
  6. ^ This story is told thus in The Beetle driver

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