How to Read the Vin Number on a 2006 Vw New Beetle
These days, we think of the Volkswagen Beetle as an keepsake of 1967's Summer of Love. The well-known counterculture social miracle put San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood on the map — and it helped the Beetle solidify its identify as a hippie symbol. Only at that place's more than to the "honey issues" than its late '60s success story. In fact, the VW Beetle benefited greatly from one of the about successful rebranding efforts in modern history.
The Origins of Volkswagen: World War Ii
While the VW Protrude is at present synonymous with gratis love and the 1960s, the vehicle's darker origins began a good three decades prior. In 1933, white supremacist and German dictator Adolf Hitler appear what he called a "people'southward motorization," and, the following year, the Reich Association of the German Automobile Manufacture officially challenged the state's automotive industry to develop a "volks wagen," or people's car.
But this alleged "car of the people" attempt was something of a propaganda-minded guise. That is, Ferdinand Porsche adult the vehicle under the motto "strength through pleasure," and aimed to make an all-terrain vehicle for Nazi armed forces utilise. In fact, the car'south brochure stated that information technology was "suitable non only for personal use only as well for transport and item armed forces purposes." By May of 1938, Volkswagen's Wolfsburg-based factory opened and began churning out vehicles.
After Nazi forces were defeated in 1945, Germany's automotive production factories were put under the control of the British government. More than 10,000 Beetles were manufactured by the stop of 1946, and, by the end of the decade, Volkswagen had sold effectually one million Beetles. In fact, it was also during this fourth dimension that the now-iconic Volkswagen model was dubbed the "Beetle."
Undoubtedly, distancing the Beetle from its unsettling, dark roots was a big undertaking, but, within less than two decades, the vehicle would be reclaimed. And transformed into a counterculture symbol for anti-war, anti-government folks who celebrated free love.
In 1972, the Wolfsburg manufacturing plant hit a notable milestone: Information technology had manufactured fifteen,007,034 Beetles, thus surpassing the amount of Ford Model T cars. So, how did this rebranded vehicle's popularity surge? The VW Beetle was affordable — and compact.
Outset off, it's air-cooled engine, for example, was much smaller and lighter than a water-cooled arrangement. This notable feature also fabricated it much easier to maintain and repair the automobile. Not only was the Beetle less of an investment upfront, but information technology didn't cost owners a ton overtime. Additionally, The Beetle'south size was a key factor in its popularity in the U.s..
Crafted by the New York-based advert bureau Doyle Dane Bernbach, what's been dubbed "one of the greatest advert campaigns of all time" helped make the Beetle the "biggest selling foreign-made car in America throughout the '60s" (via BBC). This 1959 "Think Small" campaign was a deviation from traditional automotive advertising, which was full of bluster, fantasy and illustrations of the vehicle. Instead, "Think Small-scale" featured simple, clean photographs of the Protrude, presenting it equally a practical, meaty culling to the muscle cars and gas-guzzlers on the market.
"The bulletin was ane of smart anti-luxury," a car blog points out. "[And it] took gentle aim at an manufacture obsessed with superficiality and styling, rather than the substance underneath the auto bodies." In many ways, it'southward a lot similar Apple's initial marketing opinion and aesthetic: Keep it minimal and emphasize those everyday needs.
That clever marketing angle, combined with a low price and quirky appearance, helped cement the Protrude as an early symbol of '60s counterculture. (Well, alongside its cousin, the VW van.) "For the Woodstock generation, driving a Beetle or its larger cousin, the Volkswagen van, was a form of protest against materialism and the gas guzzlers churned out by the big American carmakers," The New York Times notes.
The VW Beetle's Popularity Continues Mail service-1960s
Beetles were produced in Germany until 1978, later which production shifted to factories in Brazil and United mexican states. In fact, the terminal Volkswagen Beetle was produced in Mexico in July 2003. By that point, approximately 30,000 Beetles were produced weekly, a figure that stands in stark contrast to the ane,300,000 Beetles produced every seven days in 1971.
In 1997, Volkswagen introduced the "New Beetle," which, among other changes, featured the engine in the front rather than the rear. The New Beetle was produced until 2003, before becoming the A5 Volkswagen Beetle, which was sold until 2019. (A scandal involving Volkswagen'due south attempted violation of the Clean Air Act certainly didn't help, peculiarly in the age of green-minded, electric vehicles.)
In total, a staggering 23 million Beetle models were sold over an 83-year period. So, will this pop civilization icon be dorsum any time soon? In December 2020, the CEO of Volkswagen, Scott Keogh, was asked just that. "You know, with the Beetle, never say never," Keogh said. "We're certainly gonna keep its, you lot know, soul alive."
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Source: https://www.reference.com/history/how-vw-beetle-became-emblem-60s?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740005%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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