The lovable Volkswagen Beetle - Herbie - the original "people's car". It's hard to imagine that it all started as part of a totalitarian nightmare.

The original car, the KdF ("kraft durch freude", roughly translated as joy through work) Wagen was the brainchild of one Adolf Hitler as part of his master-plan to transform Germany from the basket-case economy it had become into a world-beating powerhouse. The brief was to create a simple, reliable car for the masses so that they could enjoy mobility, and therefore be better workers. That brief was superbly executed by Dr Ferdinand Porsche, the genius who made the car rear-engined (so as to minimise the components needed to transfer the engine's power to the road - and also to provide better grip) and air-cooled (so as to obviate the need for a potentially troublesome water-cooling system with its thermostats, its plumbing, its leaks and its need for anti-freeze in winter). There was even a new town - Wolfsburg - built to accommodate the factory and its workers.

The car was simple and utilitarian - sufficient unto the day thereof; but seeing as the day included autobanen, and the driver needed to make an appointment to get the thing to stop, it could be said to be a trifle flawed also. Yet it was, in essence, a good car - and somewhat futuristic in its design - and in its original form would surely have beaten the world.

But then in 1938 Hitler invaded Poland, and the following year, war was declared. The German machine was converted to wartime production, and Wolfsburg was no exception. The KdF-Wagen was put on hold and vehicles such as the Kubelwagen were built in its stead.

After the war, as part of the allies assessment of the territories they had, to all intents and purposes, captured, one Major Ivan Hurst of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers managed - against all the odds - to get production started again. He offered it to British car manufacturing interests, who told him in no uncertain terms that he was a fool - but history has proven that it was they who were the fools.

The Beetle had gone through several changes since its post-war resurrection. From split oval rear screen to oval rear screen to the more familiar shape of the later cars; from the small rear lights which looked like flat reflectors to the larger lights of the later cars; from the large flat headlights to the smaller upright ones; from the deeply dished hub-caps to the flatter ones - all over a space of about fifty years. Yes - although Volkswagen themselves finished making the Beetle in Germany in 1978, production continued until very recently in Brazil and Mexico - and it is a testiment to Porsche's original design that the last one is largely the same as the first.

Learn more about this author, Tabitha Hergest.
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