Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It's the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning eight decades since 1938.
It has been: a part of Germany's darkest hours as a never-realised Nazi prestige project. A symbol of Germany's postwar economic renaissance and rising middle-class prosperity.
An example of globalisation, sold and recognised all over the world. An emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the United States. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as recognizable as the Coca-Cola bottle.
End of an era. #ByeByeBeetle as the last ever Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the production line. pic.twitter.com/mOchIGW4Iz
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 11, 2019
The car's original design a rounded silhouette with seating for four or five, nearly vertical windshield and the air-cooled engine in the rear can be traced back to Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who was hired to fulfill Adolf Hitler's project for a "people's car" that would spread auto ownership the way the Ford Model T had in the US
The last Volkswagen Beetle has rolled off the assembly line after roughly seven decades of production and three generations of designs https://t.co/hQZ0cwhYOf pic.twitter.com/mHq7Jr0868
— CNN Business (@CNNBusiness) July 10, 2019
Aspects of the car bore similarities to the Tatra T97, made in Czechoslovakia in 1937, and to sketches by Hungarian engineer Bela Barenyi published in 1934.
Mass production of what was called the KdF-Wagen, based on the acronym of the Nazi labor organization under whose auspices it was to be sold, was cancelled due to World War II. Instead, the massive new plant in what was then countryside east of Hanover turned out military vehicles, using forced laborers from all over Europe under miserable conditions.
End of the Road for Volkswagen Beetle pic.twitter.com/5nDgskeoOa
— News18 (@CNNnews18) July 12, 2019
Re-launched as a civilian carmaker under supervision of the British occupation authorities, the Volkswagen factory was transferred in 1949 to the Germany government and the state of Lower Saxony, which still owns part of the company. By 1955, the millionth Beetle officially called the Type 1 had rolled off the assembly line in what was now the town of Wolfsburg.
Last Volkswagen Beetle drives into the sunset. Read more: https://t.co/3HWMqQCpDF pic.twitter.com/afEhtrA6Fo
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) July 11, 2019
The United States became Volkswagen's most important foreign market, peaking at 563,522 cars in 1968, or 40 per cent of production. Unconventional, sometimes humorous advertising from agency Doyle Dane Bernbach urged car buyers to "Think small."
"Unlike in West Germany, where its low price, quality and durability stood for a new postwar normality, in the United States the Beetle's characteristics lent it a profoundly unconventional air in a car culture dominated by size and showmanship," wrote Bernhard Rieger in his 2013 history, "The People's Car."
End of an era. After eight decades, the last Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line today at @Volkswagen_MX’s plant in Puebla, Mexico. Video courtesy of @CamiloGuilbert #byebyebeetle @NBCNewsBusiness @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/8wpOjim2iP
— Pedro Cota (@pcota) July 10, 2019
Production at Wolfsburg ended in 1978 as newer front drive models like the Golf took over. But the Beetle wasn't dead yet.
Production went on in Mexico from 1967 until 2003 longer than the car had been made in Germany. Nicknamed the "vochito," the car made itself at home as a rugged, Mexican-made "carro del pueblo."
The New Beetle a completely retro version build on a modified Golf platform resurrected some of the old Beetle's cute, unconventional aura in 1998 under CEO Ferdinand Piech, Ferdinand Porsche's grandson. In 2012, the Beetle's design was made a bit sleeker.
The end of the Beetle comes at a turning point for Volkswagen as it rebounds from a scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests.
The company is gearing up for mass production of the battery-driven compact ID.3, a car that the company predicts will have an impact like that of the Beetle and the Golf by bringing electric mobility to a mass market.
The last of 5,961 Final Edition versions of the Beetle is headed for a museum after ceremonies in Puebla on July 10 to mark the end of production.
