dictators but became a symbol of peace and love around the world it’s a pop culture icon that d the screen with such legends as Kevin Bacon Optimus Prime and Lindsey friggin Lohan and at one point it was the bestselling car of all time this is everything you need to Know. know till you up to speed on the Volkswagen Beetle it’s 1934 and Germany’s not doing so great that summer a failed artist named Adolf Hitler seized power after Germany’s. Germany’s President Hindenburg died in his home at the age of 87 Hitler mandated that Germany.

Germany have a state car something The. the average family could afford to bring the Volkswagen concept to life the German government brought in a race car engineer named Ferdinand Porsche Porsches job was to make a vehicle that was small yet big enough to fit a whole family simple Enough. enough to use and maintain Anywhere. anywhere and dependable enough that People. people could drive it practically Forever. forever for the final body Design. design reflected a trend at the time for sleek round vehicles the look didn’t leave much room for a trunk which didn’t matter because Porsche did that Thing.

thing that Porsche does he designed an aircooled boxer engine and shoved It. it in the butt but it Turned. turned out old Ferdinand might have taken a little inspiration from somewhere else Czechoslovakia more specifically the small Czech automaker tatra they saw the Volkswagen and notice that looked a little familiar so they sued him and what do you Do. do when your megalomaniacal dictator who gets sued over cars that’s right you invade the country and take over the factory as the totally original design came together it was time to start building it technically this was a government project under a division called strength through joy or in german kraft durch fruit at kraft durch Freude ah they built a brand new factory for the car and would you guess what they Called. called the town they built around this new factory the city of strength through joy at fallers laban nazis are so creative in 1938 The. the factory Began. began rolling out the first production cars off the line the first units were all given to highranking military personnel and the first convertible Was. was given to Hitler himself thing is though it was 1938 and Hitler needed Every.

every factory in Germany that started exclusively producing military vehicles so with only 210 of its original KDF.

KDF wagons built the factory shut down production to focus on the military effort an effort that would go poorly for the factory Germany Europe and the entire world Oh cut to 1945 when the Second World War ended Germany was a pile Of. of rubble the fallers Leoben factory had been bombed the occupying British forces in charge of The. the area found the original production line parts for the KDF Vagan British car makers were Invited. invited to bid on the production line parts so they could massproduce the vehicle back in the UK but nobody Wanted