Ben's father, Mijndert Pon, owned a shop (founded in 1898) that sold sewing machines, household articles and tobacco goods at Arnhemseweg (Arnhem Road) in Amersfoort.
Beginning in 1920, Pon sold Opel and Ford automobiles as well as Continental tires.
A sketch made by Pon inspired the engineers at Volkswagen to develop the VW Type 2 Transporter (a van, commonly called the "VW Bus"),[5] a vehicle that became a cultural icon for the Hippie generation of the 1960s.
A mere two years later there were one million Beetles in the U.S.[6] It has not been ascertained that Ben Pon was significantly involved in this success story, even though he was among the first to export them into the U.S.
He was, in fact, unable to find a partner for a distributorship and left the country with an unpaid hotel bill,[7] but eventually it made him a multimillionaire and one of the richest people in the Netherlands.