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The Beetle has been in production in various forms since 1938, interrupted only by the Second World War.
Officially, the "Beetle" name was never given to the original car. Inside Volkswagen, it was simply the "Type 1". The Beetle name only emerged officially with the New Beetle in 1998 (v.i.).
The origins of the car date back to 1930s Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's desire that almost anybody should be able to afford a car fit with a proposal by car designer Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1952) The intention was that ordinary working Germans would buy the car by means of a savings scheme. Prototypes of the car called the KdF-Wagen (German: Kraft durch Freude = strength through joy), appeared from 1936 onwards (the very first prototypes were produced in Stuttgart). The car already had its distinctive round shape—designed by Erwin Komenda—and air-cooled, flat-four, rear-mounted engineAn engine is something that produces some effect from a given input. The origin of engineering was the working of engines. There is an overlap in English between two meanings of the word "engineer": 'those who operate engines' and 'those who design and co. However the factory (in the new town of Kdf-Stadt, purpose-built for the factory workers), had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939. Consequently the first volume-produced versions of the car's chassis if not body were military vehicles, the jeepJeep is an automobile marque of DaimlerChrysler. The term derives from, and is often associated with, an automobile, originally a military vehicle built for the United States Army during World War II, and later produced in a line of consumer models. Altho-like KübelwagenKubelwagen is an abbreviation from Kubelsitzwagen which literally means "bucket seat car". It was a generic name for open-topped military utility cars fitted with bucket seats. The word Kubelwagen is widely used in reference to the Volkswagen 82, a milita (approx. 52,000) and the amphibious SchwimmwagenThe VW-Schwimmwagen was an amphibious vehicle which was mechanically a KdF-Wagen (later known as a VW Beetle), and was produced by the factory at KdF-Stadt ( Wolfsburg). Erwin Komenda, Ferdinand Porsche's first car body designer, developed the car body co (approx. 14,000). Deliberately designed to be as simple as possible mechanically, there was simply less that could go wrong; the radiator-less air-cooled 985 cm³ 25 hp (19 kW) motors proved especially effective in action in North Africa's desert heat.
Much of the Beetle's design was inspired by the advanced TatraTatra (named after the Tatra mountains) is a vehicle manufacturer in the Czech Republic. The company was founded in 1850 as a wagon and carriage manufacturer, and produced the first motor car in central Europe in 1897, the Prasident. One source claims tha cars of Hans LedwinkaLedwinka, Hans (born in Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria), 1878, died in Munich( Germany), 1967) was an Austrian automobile designer. Before World War I, Ledwinka worked for Nesselsdorfer and designed Type U''. In 1917, he joined Steyr. From 1921 to 1945, he. Tatra sued, but the lawsuit was stopped when Germany invaded CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia ( Czech: Ceskoslovensko Slovak: Cesko-Slovensko before 1990 Ceskoslovensko ) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1992 (except for the World War II period). On January 1, 1993, it peacefully split into the Czech Repu. The matter was re-opened after WW2 and in 1961 Volkswagen paid Tatra 3,000,000 Deutsche Marks.
The Volkswagen company owes its postwar existence largely to one man, British army officer Major Ivan Hirst (1916–2000). Post-war, he was ordered to take control of the heavily bombed factory, which the Americans had captured. He persuaded the British military to order 20,000 of the cars, and by 1946 the factory was producing 1,000 cars a month. The car and its town changed their Nazi-era names, to Volkswagen (people's car) and Wolfsburg. The first 1,785 Beetles were made in a factory near Wolfsburg in 1945.
Production of the "Type 1" VW Beetle (German: "Käfer"; US: "Bug"; French: "Coccinelle"; Italian: "Maggiolino"; Mexico: "Vocho" Brazil: "Fusca"; Spanish: "Escarabajo"; Dutch: "Kever") increased dramatically over the years, the 1 millionth one rolling off the assembly line in 1954. During the 1960s and early 1970s innovative advertising campaigns and a glowing reputation for reliability and sturdiness helped production figures to surpass the levels of the previous record holder, the Ford Model T, when Beetle No. 15,007,034 was produced on February 17, 1972; by 1973 total production was over 16 million, and by 2002 there had been over 21 million produced.
Faced with stiff competition from more modern designs—in particular economical Japanese autos in the US—sales began dropping off in the mid-1970s. There had been several unsuccessful attempts to replace the Beetle throughout the 1960s; but the Type 3, Type 4 (411) and the NSU-based K70 were all momentous flops. Finally, production lines at Wolfsburg switched to the new water-cooled, front engined, front wheel drive Golf in 1974, a car unlike its predecessor in most significant ways. Beetle production continued in smaller numbers at other German factories until 1978, but mainstream production shifted to Brazil and Mexico; the last Beetle was produced in the latter country in mid- 2003. Volkswagen sold Beetles in the United States until 1978 and in Europe until the mid- 1980s.
Like its competitors the Mini and the Citroën 2CV, the Beetle has been regarded as something of a "cult" car since its 1960s association with the hippie movement.
From 1968 to 1997 a white Beetle with racing numbers and stripes named "Herbie" played a starring role in The Love Bug series of Disney comedy films. A yellow Wunderkäfer, called DuDu, appeared in a series of German films for children.