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The origins of the company date back to 1930s Nazi Germany, and the project to build the car that would become known as the Beetle. Hitler's desire that almost anybody should be able to afford a car coincided with a proposal by car designer Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1952) -- although much of this design was inspired by the advanced Tatra cars of Hans Ledwinka. The intention was that ordinary Germans would buy the car by means of a savings scheme, which around 336,000 people eventually paid into. Prototypes of the car called the KdF-Wagen (German: Kraft durch Freude = strength through joy), appeared from 1936 onwards (the first cars had been produced in Stuttgart). The car already had its distinctive round shape and air-cooled, flat-four, rear-mounted engine, features similar to the Tatra.
Erwin Komenda, the longstanding Porsche chief designer, developed the car body of the prototype, which was recognizably the Beetle we know today.The new factory in the new town of KdF-Stadt, now called Wolfsburg, 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 were military vehicles, the jeep-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 and the amphibiousAn amphibian or amphibious vehicle is a vehicle that, like an amphibian, can move on land as well as on water. The first known self-propelled amphibious vehicle was demonstrated by United States inventor Oliver Evans in 1804. Many modern tanks and armored 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.
The company owes its postwar existence largely to one man, British army officer Major Ivan Hirst (1916-2000). In April 1945 KdF-Stadt and its heavily bombed factory were captured by the Americans, and handed to the British to administer. The factory was placed under the control of Hirst. At first the plan was to use it for military vehicle maintenance. Since it had been used for military production, and had been a "political animal" (Hirst's words) rather than a commercial enterprise, the equipment was in time intended to be salvaged as war reparations. Hirst painted one of the factory's cars green and demonstrated it to British army headquarters. Short of light transport, in September 1945 the British army was persuaded to place a vital order for 20,000. The first few hundred cars went to personnel from the occupying forces, and to the German Post Office. By 1946 the factory was producing 1000 cars a month, a remarkable feat considering the factory was still in disrepair: the damaged roof and windows meant rain stopped production; the steel to make the cars had to be bartered with new vehicles.
The car and its town changed their Second World War-era names to Volkswagen and Wolfsburg respectively, and production was increasing. It was still unclear what was to become of the factory. It was offered to representatives from the British, American and French motor industries. Famously, all rejected it. After an inspection of the plant Sir William Rootes, head of the British Rootes GroupThe Rootes Group is a now-defunct British automobile manufacturer. Rootes was the parent company of many famous British marques, including Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam, Commer and Karrier. Originally founded in Kent in 1919 by William Rootes as a car, told Hirst the project would fail within two years, and that the car "is quite unattractive to the average motorcar buyer, is too ugly and too noisy ... If you think you're going to build cars in this place, you're a bloody fool, young man." (In a bizarre twist of fate, Volkswagen would manufacture a locally built version of Rootes' Hillman AvengerThe Hillman Avenger is a sub-compact car manufactured by the Rootes Group, and latterly Chrysler Europe. It has been produced under various guises and badges over a production run that lasted 20 years. It was initially produced at Rootes' plant in Ryton-o in ArgentinaArgentina is a Spanish-speaking country in southern South America, situated between the Andes in the west and the southern Atlantic Ocean in the east. It is bordered by Paraguay and Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast and Chile in th in the 1980sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s Years: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 Events and trends, long after Rootes went bust at the hands of Chrysler in 1978 - the Beetle outliving the Coventry-based concern by over 30 years!)
Ford representatives were equally critical: the car was "not worth a damn". In France Renault started the 4CV on a similar design. In Italy it was the Fiat 500.