Type 82 Kübelwagen started in February 1940, as soon as the VW factories had become operational. No major changes took place before production ended in 1945, only small modifications were implemented, mostly eliminating unnecessary parts and reinforcing others which had proved unequal to the task. Prototype versions were assembled with four-wheel-drive (Type 86) and different engines, but none offered a significant increase in performance or capability over the existing Type 82, so these designs went nowhere. As of March 1943, the car received a revised dash and the bigger 1,131 cc engine, developed for the Schwimmwagen, that produced more torque and power than the original 985 cc unit. When Volkswagen production ceased at the end of the war, 50,435 Kübelwagen vehicles had been produced, and the vehicle had proven to be surprisingly useful, reliable, and durable. Post-war Upon conquest of Germany by the Allies, the country was occupied in four sectors: a U.S., Soviet, U.K. and French sector respectively, and the massive Volkswagen factory and the town built for its workers, Wolfsburg, fell into the British sector. U.K. Major Ivan Hirst was put in charge of the factory and workers. He is largely credited with production resuming, and reopening the VW factory. He organized the clearance of bomb-damage, and had the buildings repaired. He recommissioned machine tools, body presses and assembly jigs; he concerned himself with improving the quality of the civilian car, including starting a sales and service network and starting exports. Despite a damning report of Volkswagens by engineers from the British Rootes Group stating that: "the vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirement of a motorcar...", the British Army thought differently. When a surviving wartime Volkswagen was demonstrated to the British Rhine Army Group headquarters, the U.K. military ordered a batch of 20,000 similar vehicles. By the end of 1945, the factory had somehow managed to put together 2,490 cars. Many of them were then bartered in exchange for materials to make more cars. Hirst turned production around to export civilian Volkswagens; the first export went to the Netherlands in 1947. Long after the end of the war, VW resurrected the basic Kübelwagen design as the 1969 Type 181, developed for the German Federal Armed Forces and later also produced this model for the civilian market, which was known as "Thing" in the US, "Trekker" in the UK, and "Safari" in Mexico. Although similar in looks