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History of Volkswagen Motor Cars / Automobiles |
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- In the mid 1930s Ferndinand Porche was awarded a contract by Hitler to build what became known as the “Peoples Car”.
- Assisted by Mercedes-Benz, Porche built about 30 pre-production cars before the start of World War 2 in 1939. These pre-war cars were originally called Kdf-Wagen and then VW Kafer.
- Production of the Volkswagen Type 1, as the car was then called, started in 1945 with an order for 20,000 cars for the British Army. By 1946 the company was producing 1,000 cars a month.
- In 1967 the company began referring to the car as the “Beetle”, a name that had been previously adopted by the public.
- In 1972 the number of Beetle cars produced surpassed 15 million, beating the record held since 1927 by the model T Ford.
- The Beetle originally had a 1,131 cc engine, which was later increased to 1,584 cc, and a top speed of 62 or 82 mph (99/131 kph).
 - When production finally ceased in 2003 over 21.5 million Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle) cars had been made.
- In 1964 Volkswagen purchased Auto Union, acquiring with it the Audi name.
- Between 1961 and 1970 the company also started production of the VW1500/1600 (1961-73), VW411/412 (1968-74), K70 (1970-75) and the 181 model (1969-78).
- In 1973 Volkswagen introduced the Passat (Dasher in USA.), the Golf (Rabbit in US/Canada) in 1974 and the Polo in 1975. The sedan version of the Golf was called Vento in Europe and Jetta in the USA.
- By 2005 over 14 million Passat cars had been produced. Volkswagen had three models in the world’s top ten sellers list; the Golf (#3), Beetle (#4) and the Passat (#9).
- In 2002 Volkswagen introduced the Phaeton luxury car.
- Volkswagen cars being produced in 2007 include the Eos, Fox, Golf, Jetta, “New Beetle”, Passat, Phaeton, Polo, Sharan, Touareg and Touran.
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