Hitler and Cars- You might be driving a Car created by Our Leader

Early Volkswagen Advert

THE VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE

"It should have the shape of a June bug" - Adolf Hitler

A somewhat faded original sketch by Adolf of what the car he conceived might look like. The sketch was drawn in the "Osteria Baveria" restaurant in Munich for Jacob Werlin, head of the Daimler-Benz agency.
Adolf instructed him: "Take it with you and speak with people who understand more about it than I do. But don't forget it. I want to hear from you soon, about the technical aspects."

Adolf with the first model of the car he conceived

VW badge
The name "Volkswagen" was chosen by Adolf Hitler.

"Hitler used to describe how the city folk returned from their Sunday outings in overflowing trains, getting their buttons torn off, their hats crushed, their good mood ruined and every benefit of the relaxation wasted; how different it would be if the city workers could afford their own cars to go on real Sunday outings"
- Schwerin von Krosigk

While in prison, Adolf dreamt of a network of highways spanning the length and breadth of the country. He spoke of a small car that everyday people could afford, which would travel on these roads and open the country to German people.

"It should have the shape of a June bug", Adolf said.
Nature itself suggested the car's aerodynamic line.
That is why the car was later called a "Beetle"

Soon after taking office as German Chancellor, Adolf announced plans to build cheap cars for German families and offered them on low payments.

Early Volkswagen advertisement for the "Strength Through Joy" car.

In those days no workers had cars because they were much too expensive and the roads were primitive and congested. The "Volkswagen" would eventually cost only one-tenth as much as the normal automobile of those times. Because of this many Germans could for the first time explore their own country.

The spinoffs in industry would become one of Germany's most important industries and sources of employment.

The person that Adolf chose to design the Beetle was that German engineering genius, Professor Ferdinand Porsche.

Below is an advert portraying a "VW" Volkswagen symbol inside an ornate, wheel-like Swastika, with Professor Porsche benevolently viewing his handiwork with a peaceful German family enjoying the benefits of the world's cheapest and most loved car.

Model-12 VW prototype

About 336,000 Germans paid money into a savings program initiated by KdF and administered by the Volkswagen company who used the funds to build the largest automobile factory in Europe.
German participants were promised that the first vehicles would be delivered in 1940. Of course the war changed all of this as production was first diverted for military use.
After the war, the savings scheme was honored in full by VW for all Germans west of the Iron Curtain, but it was not politically possible to do so for Germans in Communist East Germany.

During the war, production was diverted for military use.
The "Kuebelwagen" (above) was built around essentially the same Volkswagen Beetle and functioned exceptionally well even in the North African desert.

The Schwimmwagen was also built around the basic VW Beetle and was designed to drive mostly submerged through rivers and other bodies of water that would stop any normal vehicle.

Even after the most popular car of all time stopped production, the allure of the basic shape conceived by Adolf Hitler spawned a new Volkswagen that lives into the next century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Anton_Ernst_Porsche

I know nothing about cars so i don't know if the Volkwagon is a Porsche but Hitler designed the modern Porsche and called it Super Car.

Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche (born September 19, 1909 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria-Hungary – died March 27, 1998 in Zell am See, Austria), mainly known as Ferry Porsche, was an Austrian technical automobile designer and automaker-entrepreneur. He operated Porsche AG in Stuttgart, Germany. His father, Ferdinand Porsche Sr was also a renowned automobile engineer. His nephew, Dr. Ferdinand Piëch, was chairman of Volkswagen from 1993 to 2002, and his son, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, was involved in the design of the 911.

Ferry Porsche's life was intimately connected with that of his father, Ferdinand Porsche, Sr, who began sharing his knowledge of mechanical engineering already in his childhood. With his father he opened a bureau of automobile design, in Stuttgart in 1931.

They worked together to fulfill their country's National Socialist regime's needs and they met Adolf Hitler at many business events. The Volkswagen Beetle was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, Sr and a team of engineers (including Ferry Porsche).

After World War II, while his father remained imprisoned in France being accused of war crimes, Ferry Porsche ran their company. Aided by the postwar Volkswagen enterprise, he created the first real Porsches. Despite the political-economical adversities of the postwar years, the company manufactured automobiles and, eventually, became a world powerhouse for producing sport cars.

Golden, one-millionth VW Beetle, Hitler would have sold it to a Museum and given the Money to Curing Cancer.

VW 1303 (1973)

Beetles went to Great Britain.

2000 VW New Beetle

Media references, pop culture

The Beetle has made numerous appearances in Hollywood films, most notably The Love Bug comedy series (Disney) from 1968 to 2005, starring as "Herbie", a pearl-white, fabric-sunroofed 1963 Beetle—racing number 53.


Mr Bean's Car

In 2008, Volkswagen launched a series of commercials set to a talk show theme with a black Beetle named Max (voiced by Bronson Pinchot speaking with a German accent) as the show's host. Featured guests included supermodel Heidi Klum, basketball coach Bob Knight, Napster creator Shawn Fanning, former Space Shuttle commander Richard A. Searfoss and actor David Hasselhoff. Another one was used to introduce the Volkswagen Tiguan crossover vehicle.


In the 1968 movie comedy Bye Bye Braverman and the 1964 novel upon which it is based, To an Early Grave, a cramped Beetle is used as the vehicle by a quartet of Jewish literary intellectuals traveling from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn to attend the funeral of a deceased member of their circle, and its Nazi heritage is repeatedly a subject of discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen

Type	Subsidiary of Volkswagen Group
Founded	1938
Founder	Adolf Hitler, Ferdinand Porsche[1] and Robert Ley[2] in 1938; Ivan Hirst[3] and Heinz Nordhoff in 1948[4]
Headquarters	Wolfsburg, Germany
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Martin Winterkorn: Chairman of the Board of Management, Christian Klingler: Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars
Industry	Automotive industry
Products	mainstream Cars
Revenue	€73.94 billion (2007)[5]
Operating income	▲ €1.94 billion (2007)[5]
Website	Volkswagen.com

Volkswagen Passenger Cars is a German manufacturer of automobiles, based in Wolfsburg, Germany. It forms the major component (in volume of sales) of the much larger Volkswagen Group ("Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft", or "Volkswagen AG"), which as of July 30, 2007 is the world's third largest car producer after Toyota and General Motors respectively.

Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, in which it is pronounced [ˈfɔlksˌvaːgən]. Its current tagline or slogan is Das Auto (in English The Car). Its previous German tagline was Aus Liebe zum Automobil, which translates to: Out of Love for the Car, or, For Love of the Automobile, as translated by VW in other languages.

Transformations

The 2000 Volkswagen Golf GL, in North American form

The 2006 Jetta

The Chosen Car

Volkswagen of America Inc. promotes its work in developing clean diesel, and other fuel-efficient technologies, in order to increase U.S. sales to environmentally conscious consumers. One of the promoting vehicle is the 2009 clean-diesel Jetta TDI, which has a 16-valve, four-cylinder common rail direct injection engine which reduces emissions by 90 percent. Volkswagen also claims that this model has the advantage of fuel economy in the mid-50s and mid-40s in city conditions. Stefan Jacoby, CEO of America's Volkswagen, said that it will be released in a sedan and sport-wagon model in May 2008 in California, becoming the first 50-state clean diesel offering.^[20] Also, Volkswagen and Sanyo have teamed up to develop a hybrid vehicle battery system.^[21]

Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn has confirmed the company plans to build compact hybrid vehicles. There will definitely be compact hybrid models, such as Polo and Golf, and without any great delay", with gasoline and diesel engines. For example, Golf is the ideal model to go hybrid as the Golf 1.4 TSI was recently awarded the “Auto Environment Certificate” by the Oko-Trend Institute for Environmental Research, and was considered as one of the most environmentally friendly vehicles of 2007.^[22] Also underway at Volkswagen's Braunschweig R&D facilities in Northern Germany is a hybrid version of the next-generation Touareg, due in 2010.^[23]

VW intends all future models to have the hybrid option. “Future VW models will fundamentally also be constructed with hybrid concepts,” VW head of development Ulrich Hackenberg told Automobilwoche in an interview. Hackenberg mentioned that the car based on the up! concept seen at Frankfurt motorshow^[24], as well as all future models, could be offered with either full or partial hybrid options. The rear-engine up! will go into production in 2011. Nothing has been said about plug-in hybrid option.^[25]

VW's Chief of research, Dr. Jurgen Leohold, said the company has concluded hydrogen fuel-cell cars are not a viable option

Beetles used as taxis in Mexico City

Motorsport gallery

1939 Berlin to Rome. Porsche Type 64 racer based on Beetle platform	Twin-engine racing Beetle developed by Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi brothers	Bora in TC 2000, a national championship of Argentine	Bora in Stock Car Brasil
Edition 2007 Race Touareg 2 at Essen Motor Show 2006	Constellation in the 2006 Brazilian Fórmula Truck Championship