It's natural that car models get bigger as they develop. Today's VW Polo is about the size of the original Mk1 VW Golf, while the current Mk5 Golf is almost up to the original Passat class.

So too with Kombis. The original T1 Kombi was tiny when you see it beside a current T5 Transporter:

I found out the hard way that if you reverse different cars onto hoists, you had better rmake sure they are the same width. I took the mirror off a T4.
I think in reality a t4/5 would dwarf a splitty more than it does in that pic