The Birth of Volkswagen
Volkswagen is now a manufacturer of ubiquitous cars that are both accessible (in that they are reasonably priced) and of high quality (they are built to last) and the model range includes both utilitarian vehicles and cars that are designed to be driven for fun. But how did this icon of the motor industry get started? Here we will look at the origins of this important brand.
Volkswagen was born in Germany in 1937 at a time when the German motor industry was obsessed with producing luxury vehicles for the very rich; for the most part working men and women had to make do with motorcycles and side cars. However there was a groundswell for the development of a car that ordinary people could afford, a ‘people’s car’. The German government under Adolf Hitler proposed that there would be a ‘Volkswagen’ project. (Volkswagen means ‘peoples car’ in German).
Ferdinand Porsche was put in charge of the project which would be to produce a car that could carry two adults and three children and would cost no more than a motorcycle. People would be able to buy the car through a government savings scheme.
The body shell was designed by Erwin Komenda and amazingly it has very similar lines to the modern Volkswagen Beetle. It was put into production as the Type 1 in 1938 at a factory in Wolfsburg and a handful of cars were made, but the Second World War intervened in the carefully devised plans. Instead of producing Type 1 cars for the people the factory was turned over to producing very similar Type 82 cars for the German war machine and the entire output was channelled to the German forces.
During the war the factory was bombed heavily and following the armistice the it was taken over by the British and was placed under the charge of Major Ivan Hirst. Initially the plan had been to dismantle the factory but Hirst was so impressed with the Type 82 that he persuaded the British Army to order 20,000 of them. Within a year the factory was making 1,000 cars a month. Volkswagen was born and the rest is history.