Skip to content
Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Primary Menu Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

Hindi News, हिंदी समाचार, Samachar, Breaking News, Latest Khabar – Pratirodh

  • Home
  • Newswires
  • Politics & Society
  • The New Feudals
  • World View
  • Arts And Aesthetics
  • For The Record
  • About Us
  • Arts And Aesthetics
  • Featured

From Nazis to Hippies, End Of The Road For VW Beetle

Jul 13, 2019 | Pratirodh Bureau

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 symbolised 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 post-war 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 US. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as recognisable as the Coca-Cola bottle.

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 fulfil Adolf Hitler’s project for a “people’s car” that would spread auto ownership the way the Ford Model T had in the US.

Mass production of what was called the KdF-Wagen, based on the acronym of the Nazi labour organisation under whose auspices it was to be sold, was cancelled because of World War II. Instead, the massive new plant in what was then countryside east of Hanover turned out military vehicles, using forced labourers from all over Europe under miserable conditions.

Re-launched as a civilian carmaker under supervision of the British occupation authorities, the Volkswagen factory was transferred in 1949 to the German government and the state of Lower Saxony, which still owns part of the company..

The US became Volkswagen’s most important foreign market, peaking at 563,522 cars in 1968, or 40 per cent of production. Unconventional, sometimes humourous 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 post-war normality, in the US, 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.”

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 built 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.

Continue Reading

Previous Rahul Gandhi Pleads Not Guilty In Defamation Case By Ahmedabad Bank, Gets Bail
Next BJP To Revive Plan For Hindu Settlements In Kashmir

More Stories

  • Featured

Clashes In US After Cop Shoots 20-Year-Old Black Man

6 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Big Spike In Daily Covid Cases, But Crowds Gather For Festival

7 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Farmers Ready To Talk If Govt Invites, No Change In Demands: Tikait

14 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau

Recent Posts

  • Clashes In US After Cop Shoots 20-Year-Old Black Man
  • Big Spike In Daily Covid Cases, But Crowds Gather For Festival
  • Farmers Ready To Talk If Govt Invites, No Change In Demands: Tikait
  • Illegal Driftnet Use Rife In Indian Ocean: Greenpeace
  • As Migrants Flee Cities, Concerns About Covid Surge In Villages
  • Not Even Fear Of Covid Can Disrupt Protest, Say Agitating Farmers
  • US Defends Navy Ship’s Navigational Rights Inside India’s EEZ
  • George Floyd Autopsy: Doctor Stands By Homicide Conclusion
  • Gyanvapi Mosque: UP Waqf Board To Challenge ASI Survey Order
  • Police Clamp Curbs On Media Coverage Of Kashmir Gunbattles
  • Govt. To Review Covid Vaccines After Blood Clot Warning
  • ‘Climate Change, Rich-Poor Gap, Conflict Likely To Grow’
  • ‘Onus Is On Men’: Imran’s Ex-Wife On His ‘Vulgarity’ Rape Remark
  • Rallies, Religious Gatherings Aggravate Worst Covid Surge
  • Compensate Farmers For Crop Damage By Animals: Tikait
  • Myanmar Activists Hold Shoe Protests, Another Celebrity Held
  • 7 Arrested After Climate Protesters Target Barclays London HQ
  • Foundation Laid For ‘Memorial’ To Farmers Who Died During Protests
  • UK Variant Found In 80% Of Covid Cases In Punjab: Health Minister
  • Amnesty International Says Russia May Be Slowly Killing Navalny

Search

Main Links

  • Home
  • Newswires
  • Politics & Society
  • The New Feudals
  • World View
  • Arts And Aesthetics
  • For The Record
  • About Us

Related Stroy

  • Featured

Clashes In US After Cop Shoots 20-Year-Old Black Man

6 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Big Spike In Daily Covid Cases, But Crowds Gather For Festival

7 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Farmers Ready To Talk If Govt Invites, No Change In Demands: Tikait

14 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

Illegal Driftnet Use Rife In Indian Ocean: Greenpeace

14 hours ago Pratirodh Bureau
  • Featured

As Migrants Flee Cities, Concerns About Covid Surge In Villages

2 days ago Pratirodh Bureau

Recent Posts

  • Clashes In US After Cop Shoots 20-Year-Old Black Man
  • Big Spike In Daily Covid Cases, But Crowds Gather For Festival
  • Farmers Ready To Talk If Govt Invites, No Change In Demands: Tikait
  • Illegal Driftnet Use Rife In Indian Ocean: Greenpeace
  • As Migrants Flee Cities, Concerns About Covid Surge In Villages
Copyright © All rights reserved. | CoverNews by AF themes.