A superb
and rare photo of the Volkswagen Beetle
, and in Germany
known as the Volkswagen Käfer
( VW Bug in English).
The Volkswagen Beetle,
officially known as the type 1, and originally called in German ‘Käfer’, is an
economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until
2003. Although the names "Beetle" and "Bug" were quickly
adopted by the public, it was not until August 1967 that VW itself began using
the name Beetle in marketing materials in the US. In most countries the Beetle is
known as either the "Type I" or as the 1100, 1200, 1300, 1500, or
1600 which had been the names under which the vehicle was marketed in Europe; the numbers denoted the vehicle's approximate
engine size in cubic centimetres. In 1998, many years after the original model
had been dropped from the lineup in most of the world (production continued in Mexico
until 2003), VW introduced the "New Beetle" (built on a Volkswagen
Golf Mk4 platform) which bore a cosmetic resemblance to the original. Starting
in 1931, Ferdinand Porsche and Zündapp developed the "Auto für
Jedermann" (car for the everyman). This was the first time the name
"Volkswagen" was used. Porsche already preferred the flat-4 cylinder
engine, but Zündapp used a watercooled 5-cylinder radial engine. In 1932, three
prototypes were running. All of those cars were lost during the war, the last
in a bombing raid over Stuttgart
in 1945. In
1933, Adolf Hitler gave the order to Ferdinand Porsche to develope a
"Volks-Wagen" (the name means "people's car" in German, in
which it is pronounced, a basic vehicle that should be capable of transporting
two adults and three children at a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). The People's
Car would be made available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings
scheme at 990 Reichsmark, about the price of a small motorcycle at the time (an
average income being around 32RM/week). Erwin Komenda, Porsche's chief
designer, was responsible for the design and styling of the car. Production
only became financially viable, however, when it was backed by the Third Reich.
War broke out before the large-scale production of the "People's Car"
could commence, and manufacturing capacity was shifted to producing military
vehicles. Production of civilian VW automobiles did not start until after the
post-war occupation began. Initially called the Porsche 60 by Ferdinand
Porsche, it was officially named the KdF-Wagen when the project was launched. The
name refers to Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy), the official leisure
organization in the Third Reich. It was later known as the Type 1, but became
more commonly known as the Beetle after World War II. Prototypes appeared from
1931 onwards. Much of the Beetle's design was inspired by the advanced Tatra
cars of Hans Ledwinka, particularly the T97. This car also had a streamlined
body and a rear-mounted 4 cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine. The
Tatra V570, a prototype for a smaller car, also shows quite a resemblance to
the later Volkswagens. Tatra launched a lawsuit, but this was stopped when Germany
invaded Czechoslovakia.
At the same time, Tatra was forced to stop producing the T97. The matter was
re-opened after WW2 and in 1961 Volkswagen paid Tatra 3,000,000 Deutsche Marks
in compensation. These damages meant that Volkswagen had little money for the
development of new models and the Beetle's production life was necessarily
extended. In occupied Germany,
the Allies followed the Morgenthau plan to remove all German war potential by
complete or partial pastoralization. As part of this, in the Industrial plans
for Germany,
the rules for which industry Germany
was to be allowed to retain were set out. German car production was set at a
maximum of 10% of the 1936 car production numbers. The Volkswagen factory at Wolfsburg was handed over
by the Americans to British control in 1945; it was to be dismantled and
shipped to Britain.
Thankfully for Volkswagen, no British car manufacturer was interested in the factory;
"the vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirement of a
motor-car ... it is quite unattractive to the average buyer ... To build the
car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise." The factory
survived by producing cars for the British Army instead. The re-opening of the
factory is largely accredited to British Army officer Major Ivan Hirst
(1916–2000). Hirst was ordered to take control of the heavily bombed factory,
which the Americans had captured. His first task was to remove an unexploded
bomb which had fallen through the roof and lodged itself between some pieces of
irreplaceable production equipment; if the bomb had exploded, the Beetle's fate
would have been sealed. Hirst persuaded the British military to order 20,000 of
the cars, and by 1946 the factory was producing 1,000 cars a month. During this
period the car and its town changed their Nazi-era names to Volkswagen
(people's car) and Wolfsburg,
respectively. The first 1,785 Beetles were made in a factory near Wolfsburg in 1945. Following
the Army-led restart of production, Heinz Nordhoff was appointed director of
the Volkswagen factory, under whom production increased dramatically over the
following decade, with the one-millionth car coming off the assembly line by
1955.
You can always contact us for more Volkswagen and other automotive photos!
This is a very nice and very rare photo that
reflects a wonderful era of Volkswagen ‘s automotive history in a wonderful
way. This is your rare chance to own this photo, therefore it is printed
in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 12" (ca. 20 x 30 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.