Was the Volkswagen Kombi at some moment more relevant than the Beetle itself?

It's undeniable there would be no Kombi without the Beetle, but it's quite obvious the boxy bodyshell of the good ol' Kombi took the versatility of the Volkswagen air-cooled engine and rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout to a further extent. From a small cargo freighter to a family hauler before minivans were so widespread, going further to become the perfect mobile lodging for hippies, ultimately the Kombi made itself as much famous as the Beetle, and maybe was favored by some more lenient regulations to which a commercial vehicle could get away with. But ultimately, how accurate could it be to claim the Kombi took over some of the appreciation which was supposed to be most devouted to the Beetle?

It's worth to notice how the Kombi effectively outlived the Beetle on regular production worldwide, and even the outdated Brazilian facelifted Kombi from '76 to '96 retained a foothold on CKD assemblies for markets where its European and South African replacements were deemed too expensive to be a viable contender against an emerging competition from Japanese and Korean automakers in the '70s and '80s, even in Indonesia where in '85 the Kombi assembled from Brazilian CKD kits was the only Volkswagen model available prior to the brand being phased out to only return to Indonesia in the '90s without the Brazilian Kombi or the Mexican Beetle, and less commited to its roots as the people's car. Meanwhile in Brazil, as the Beetle had been phased out in '86 to only resume production from '93 to '96 on what got known as the Itamar series due to direct involvement of former Brazilian president Itamar Franco, the Kombi remained the only true-blooded rear-engined Volkswagen in Brazil from '86 to '93, and started to face serious competition for the first time in '90 when restrictions on vehicle imports implemented in '76 were finally lifted by former president Fernando Collor de Mello, paving the way for imported vans such as Korean copies of the Mazda Bongo to a Spanish-made Mercedes-Benz which had its fair share of the market for ambulances in the '90s. And even the return of the Beetle to the Brazilian market was conditioned to the Kombi receiving the same benefits provided for the Beetle under the people's car program, to which an amendment had to be made so the air-cooled 1.6L engine would be in pair with liquid-cooled 1.0L engines from then-modern compact cars in order to qualify for a lower taxation.

Sure from a logistical standpoint it would make more sense to import a few Mexican Beetles, where it was only phased out in 2003, than to resume production in Brasil for only 3 years from late-'93 until mid-'96, in contrast to the Kombi which against all odds soldiered on until 2013 in Brazil after fewer updated which included the replacement of the air-cooled engine for a water-cooled 1.4L EA-111 in a flexfuel trim which enabled it to run on gasoline and ethanol either pure or blended. Maybe it was much easier for most people on the market for a compact car to transition from the Beetle to whichever could be deemed more modern, while the Kombi still influenced even its Japanese contenders which tended to retain the forward-control configuration, despite retaining a conservative front-engine, rear-wheel drive configuration which would trade-off some mild off-road ability to easier access to the loading bay. In the end, even though the Beetle and its worldwide success paved the way for the Kombi, later on it was proven harder to single-out an effective replacement for the Beetle other than the Kombi itself under some specific circumstances where the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout remained favorable for driving through rough terrain, and ultimately the Kombi remained relevant as some of its more serious contenders still drew inspiration from its design somehow.