The Volkswagen Beetle is one of the most recognizable car models in the United States. Its small, cute, and curvy body and has become a symbol of the 1960s counterculture, associated forever with hippies and talking cars. Recently though, Volkswagen announced that the popular car is getting a makeover with an all-new design.
This is not the first new design for the model. The car, which has been around since Nazi Germany, has a history filled with drawbacks and redesigns. Take a look at some of the more important moments in the car’s history.
On April 18, Volkswagen announced the new design, which gets rid of many of the adorable curves in favor of a flatter, edgier look that is expected to attract a more male demographic. The company went back to a more vintage look, taking advice from the original Beetle’s design.
“It ties in more with our other products. It’s more upscale,” said Andres Valbuena, VW’s lead Beetle project manager for the United States. It goes on sale this fall.
The original Volkswagen Beetle was born from within the Third Reich. Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of Porsche, was commissioned by Adolf Hitler to create a car for the people – Volkswagen translates roughly to the “people’s car.” According to author Billy F. Price in the book “Adolf Hitler: The Unknown Artist,” this drawing of the prototype Volkswagen was completed by Hitler in 1932 at a restaurant and was passed off to his automotive adviser.
The Volkswagen Beetle, which was called KdF-Wagen at the time of launch, was designed with the average family in mind, with enough room to carry five people.
Pictured here is Hitler speaking at the grand opening of the Volkswagen car factory in Fallersleben, Germany, in 1938.
The onset of World War II and the collapse of the Third Reich temporarily halted the growing success of the Beetle.
However, after the Allies took control of the factory that previously made the Beetle, mass production was resumed at the plant, thanks mainly to military orders from the British.
After the release of the new Beetles in the 1950s, the popularity of the small car soared stateside.
There were also improvements made on the newer models. The engine was 50 percent larger and produced 53 horsepower.
The popularity of the car grew in the 1960s, where the model had become a symbol of the hippie counterculture thanks to its cute and quirky design. The car also became an even larger part of popular culture when Disney premiered “The Love Bug,” franchise, starring the anthropomorphic Herbie, which started as a series of movies in 1968 and expanded into a TV series.Volkswagen introduced the Super Beetle in 1971, which was the largest variant on the model, according to the Associated Press. However, the model wouldn’t see much play in the next couple of decades because of increased competition from Japanese small-car models like Honda and Nissan. Volkswagen stopped selling the car in the United States in 1979. At that point, more than 21 million had been produced.
Luckily, the Beetle made a comeback in in 1998 with the New Beetle, a whole new design that would cater to a new crowd. It debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in 1994 and was much rounder and cuter than its predecessors. For a time, it outsold Ford Focus and Chevy Impala, according to the AP.
What has been the appeal of the Beetle after all of this time? The Beetle has always been very affordable, and its small shape make it very appealing to consumers. Especially in these tough economic times with gas prices on the rise, the Beetle is also very cost efficient. However, the New Beetle has been the constant design from 1998 to 2010. The announcement of a new design then was very expected.
While the Beetle is certainly popular, it faces some competition in other foreign, small cars such as the Mini Cooper, which started outselling the Beetle almost 3-to-1 last year. The car is also not the only funky model on the market, competing with the likes of the Kia Soul, Nissan Cube, and the Scion xB.
How well the new Beetle will do will not be known until it is released this fall, but Volkswagen is very optimistic.
“Every car manufacturer faces this when they do a facelift, but in the case of the Beetle, you’ve got something people feel fairly strongly about,” said Larry Erickson, who led a lauded redesign of the Ford Mustang six years ago. “It has a certain personality to it, an endearing quality.”
However, will people also be angry at the design, who loved the old model?