In the world of cars, there is no car that would rival the Volkswagen Beetle in terms of a number of units produced and the length of time the car has been created. While the iconic Beetle is easily recognisable, not many would associate this car’s origins to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.
Establishing the Volkswagen
Volkswagen was established as the Gesellschaft Zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH on May 28, 1936, and was renamed Volkswagenwerk GmbH a year later. Its purpose was to create a car that would be available to the masses and was actually the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. Hitler envisioned that the Volkswagen, which translates to “the people’s car”, would be available to ordinary Germans through a savings scheme. To this, Hitler commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to build the car that would, later on, be the most successful car in automotive history.
The first prototype of the famous Beetle was named the “KdF-Wagen” by Adolf Hilter during a speech at the Wolfsburg factory. KdF stands of Kraft Durch Freude which translates to strength through joy. The first KdF-Wagen was produced in 1938 in a factory in Stuttgart. The car had the signature round shape and the air-cooled rear-mounted flat-four engine of the VW Beetle. The car was designed to be as simple as possible mechanically so that fewer parts that would fail or go wrong. The cars were also tested in a wind tunnel which was used to test prototype aircraft. During the testing stage, the prototypes logged in a very impressive 1,800,000 miles before it was approved.
The Volkswagen during World War II
The Wolfsburg factory only produced a handful of cars before the outbreak of World War II. During that war, the then, Volkswagen Beetle was modified for military use. The Kubelwagen or “bucket car” and the amphibious Schwimmwagen were variants of the original KdF-Wagen that were made for military purposes.
After the war and under the supervision of the Allied Forces, the Wolfsburg plant resumed production of the Beetle. Major Ivan Hirst of the British Army was in charge of the factory and the first order of 20,000 cars was for the British Military. The KdF-Wagen based car was officially designated as the Volkswagen Type 1 and was more commonly known as the Beetle.
The Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle went on to be the most successful car in the automotive world. It had the longest running production of a single platform which ran from 1938 to 2003. It is also the most manufactured car with 21,529,464 units made. At its peak in 1971, there were 1.7 million Volkswagen Beetles made. The last Beetle named “El Rey” (translates to “the king”), rolled off the production line in Puebla, Mexico on July 30, 2003, and was shipped to the company museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.
The final advertisement that ran for the Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle: “It is incredible that a car so small can leave such a large void.”