History of the legendary Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a brand name that is synonymous with luxury and comfort passenger cars. It is a German based automobile manufacturer and is the biggest trademark of the Volkswagen Group. The other manufacturers include Skoda, Porsche, Seat, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Bentley and Audi. Volkswagen’s literal meaning is people’s car and it satisfies all the requirements of being an efficient one. Volkswagen is identified by its tag line Das Auto. Volkswagen was originally started in the year 1937. During that period it was just the luxury cars that made their presence felt all around and hence the common man was left with no options at all. The average German could not afford to buy any of those luxury models and this paved the way for the car manufacturers to enter into the genre of medium priced cars.

After the intervention of Hitler the production of a small family car capable of seating two adults with two children came into being. Around the year 1945 after the war period, the company was brought to the fore by Ivan Hirst, a British army officer. He was the man behind the ordering of thousands of cars for the occupying personnel in the army. A factory that was handed over to the British by the Americans post war was now producing more than a thousand cars each month. This gave a huge impetus to the car manufacturing group and later around the same period Volkswagen became the major source for improving Germany’s economy.

After 1948 the car manufacturer didn’t turn back and continuously gained momentum in its fame, glory and production. Volkswagen became a symbol for the German regeneration. The Volkswagen cars entered into the American markets soon after and made their presence felt around 1949. The starting feedback to the company was not very affirmative but it soon gained itself the title of Victory wagon. In order to standardize the sales, the company began the Volkswagen of America unit. This was followed by the Volkswagen Beetle becoming a rage among the people and soon after this many such units opened in Canada and Toronto as well.

Volkswagen factory with one of its own power plants

The growing market trends urged the company to venture into fashionable trendy car models. So the car manufacturer expanded its line of production beginning in the year 1961. The launch of the type 3 car models were then followed by the type 4 car models. Various new techniques were introduced which included electronic fuel injection, automatic transmission and unibody transmission. Super beetle was introduces successfully in the year 1971 that excelled in the use of front suspension modules. The car company became a much bigger brand after the takeover of the auto union and merged it with the NSU and has the luxury car manufacturing as its forte.

Volkswagen’s entire range of cars gained significance and came at par with the European car makers. The car manufacturer entered into the category of supermini car models in 1975 with Volkswagen Polo. The car manufacturer has been going steady since then and has become the largest international corporation in the auto industry.