Team Barnes is proud to select in the
Pre War category,
THE car of the century...
The Volkswagen Beetle
1938–2003
21,529,464 built
(of which 15,444,858 in Germany, incl. 330,251 Cabriolets,[1]
and ≈ 3.350.000 in Brazil)
Initially called the Porsche 60 by Ferdinand Porsche, it was officially named the KdF-Wagen when the project was launched. The name refers to Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy), the official leisure organization in the Third Reich. It was later known as the Type 1, but became more commonly known as the Beetle after World War II.
Prototypes appeared from 1931; the first were produced by Zündapp in Nürnberg, the Porsche Type 12. The next prototype series (Porsche Type 32) were built in 1933 by NSU, another motorcycle company.
In October 1935 the first Type 60 was ready. In 1935 testing of the "V3" started. The "VW30" prototypes had further testing in 1937. All cars already had the distinctive round shape and the air-cooled, rear-mounted engine, except for the Type 12, Zündapp preferred a 5-cylinder radial watercooled engine.
The factory had only produced a handful of cars by start of the war in 1939. Consequently, the first volume-produced versions of the car's chassis were military vehicles, the Kübelwagen Type 82 (approx. 52,000 built) and the amphibious Schwimmwagen Type 166 (approx. 14,000 built).
The car was designed to be as simple as possible mechanically, so that there was less to go wrong; the aircooled 985 cc 25 horsepower (19 kW) motors proved especially effective in actions of the German Afrika Korps in Africa's desert heat. This was due to the built-in oil-cooler, and the superior performance of the flat-4 engine configuration. The innovative suspension design used compact torsion bars instead of coil or leaf springs. The Beetle is more or less airtight and will float on water, indeed it is hard to slam the door on one since the difference in air pressure pushes it back before it shuts.
The model village of Stadt des KdF-Wagens was created in Lower Saxony in 1938 for the benefit of the workers at the factory.
A handful of Beetles were produced specifically for civilians, primarily for the Nazi elite, in the years 1940–1945, but production figures were small. Because of gasoline shortages, a few wartime "Holzbrenner" Beetles were fueled by wood pyrolysis gas producers under the hood. In addition to the Kübelwagen, Schwimmwagen, and handful of others, the factory managed another wartime vehicle: the Kommandeurwagen; a Beetle body mounted on the Kübelwagen chassis.
669 Kommandeurwagens were produced up to 1945, when all production was halted because of heavy damage to the factory by Allied air raids. Much of the essential equipment had already been moved to underground bunkers for protection, which let production resume quickly after hostilities ended.
