VW BEETLE 1938-2003
Many would regard the Volkswagen (pop fact: it was never officially called Beetle) as the original people’s car and indeed it does have a good claim to that status, right down to the company name that of course translates quite literally to people’s car. It may not have been the first affordable car aimed at the masses – the Austin Seven for example beat it by several decades – but it was perhaps the first to be a full-size vehicle capable of accommodating a family and transporting it over long distances. The Fiat 500 was truly tiny in comparison, while the 2CV was more spacious but its minimalist engineering put it in a different league from the solid build of the Volkswagen.
The car’s origins in the murk of pre-war German politics have been chronicled extensively but one important factor is that government backing meant the car could be a clean-sheet design with none of the historical baggage or
