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The Rise And Fall Of The Volkswagen Beetle - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
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From its dark origins in Nazi Germany
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to the "Summer of Love"
and the big screen,
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the Volkswagen Beetle is one
of the most recognizable cars
[10]
ever made.
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In its 81-year run,
[13]
the quirky car sold over 23 million units
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and left tread marks on
91 countries worldwide.
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But in 2019, Volkswagen officially
produced its last Beetle.
[24]
So, how did this tiny German
car take over the world,
[27]
and has it really met its end?
[31]
The Volkswagen dates all
the way back to the 1930s,
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commissioned by none
other than Adolf Hitler.
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The Nazi dictator wanted a car
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that the general public could afford.
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So Hitler tapped engineer
[43]
and Nazi Party member Ferdinand Porsche.
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Yes, that Porsche.
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He designed the Volkswagen,
or "the people's car."
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Jason Torchinsky: Out of
all the ideas the Nazis had,
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it's the one non-terrible idea
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because a cheap car for everybody
[57]
is sort of the thing that
the Model T was in America
[59]
and the Mini was in the UK.
[62]
Narrator: The Volkswagen
Type 1 was a two-door car
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with an air-cooled engine in the back.
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Production began in
Wolfsburg, Germany, in 1938.
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But when World War II started,
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manufacturing for the
general public stopped.
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The only Volkswagens made at the time
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were for military officials.
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Hitler himself drove
a convertible version.
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After the war, the British
took over the factory,
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and within the first year,
they'd produced 10,000 Beetles,
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because it filled the demand
for cheap and practical cars
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across war-torn Europe.
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Torchinsky: Plus it was good on gas,
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which was still expensive
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and in short supply in a lot of places.
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Part of the reason it's
got such a curved design
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is to minimize the amount
of sheet metal that it uses.
[97]
So, it was a resource-efficient
design, relatively.
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It took a lot of human
power to build them.
[103]
But that was actually a
good thing at the time
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because they wanted to give people jobs.
[112]
Narrator: In 1949,
Volkswagen took the Beetle
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to the United States, and
it was a massive success.
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Unlike the big, flashy
cars popular of that era,
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with their chrome and fins,
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the Beetle's modest size and
teardrop shape stood out.
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Torchinsky: If you look at it head-on,
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the biggest thing you'll notice
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compared to an average car of,
like, say, the '50s or '60s,
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is there's no big grill.
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It's not intimidating in any way.
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It's got big, round headlights,
like big friendly eyes.
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It wasn't aggressive, it
wasn't trying to hurt you.
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It was your pal who was your car.
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Narrator: Not only was
it cute, it was durable.
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Announcer: At Volkswagen,
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we don't worry about how our car looks;
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we worry about how it works.
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Torchinsky: They built
the hell out of Beetles.
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So many other carmakers coming
into America had problems
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with their cars just not being built
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to take the massive scale of America.
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The Beetle's engine was
designed to be low-revving.
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You could drive it flat-out all day
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and it's not gonna kill it.
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Narrator: No one better
catapulted the Beetle to success
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in the States than
advertiser Bill Bernbach.
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His revolutionary 1959 ad campaign
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highlighted the Beetle's oddball features
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as its strengths.
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Marita Sturken: Those ads were very good
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at giving the car a kind of voice.
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It's as if the car is
honest, the car is humble.
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And it's talking to you, the consumer,
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about these new values of conservation,
[191]
of thinking small and taking into account
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broader kind of social issues
[196]
in even in your decision of
what to purchase as a car.
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Narrator: The campaign was a success.
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Volkswagen sales jumped
52% in the United States
[206]
as other European imports dropped 27%.
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And the misfit car was cemented
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as a symbol of the counterculture.
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Torchinsky: If you drove
a Beetle, on some level,
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you were saying, I'm not taken in
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by all the excesses of
capitalism, or whatever.
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So, it made sense that the
hippies would gravitate to it.
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Narrator: The Beetle
was perfect for hippies.
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It was the exact opposite of
the cars their parents liked.
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Plus, it was easy to maintain,
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and it could last on those
long California road trips.
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Scott Keough: America was changing from
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what did the government tell me,
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what is the truth, what do
I believe in as a person.
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And the Beetle just threw a
dart right into that place,
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and (snaps) magic.
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Narrator: Not to mention it was cheap.
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A new Volkswagen Beetle
in 1967 came in at $1,600,
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about 12 grand in today's money.
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A Ford Mustang would've
cost you about $2,700,
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or about $20,600 today.
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Keough: It was an honest,
straightforward proposal.
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It had a great price.
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It didn't over-promise anything.
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It promised exactly what
it was capable of doing,
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and that's why it caught on.
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Narrator: And then Hollywood stepped in,
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introducing Herbie the Love Bug in 1968.
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Announcer: A mind of his own makes Herbie
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the sole Bug of the love generation.
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Narrator: The anthropomorphic
Beetle with a big personality
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would go on to star in
five movie spin-offs.
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That same year, VW Beetle sales in the US
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hit an all-time peak
with 423,000 cars sold.
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By 1972, the 15 millionth Beetle
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rolled off the manufacturing line,
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breaking the Ford Model
T's 40-year standing record
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for the best-selling car in the world.
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But soon, the road turned bumpy
for the Beetle in America.
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In the 1980s, the car couldn't
keep up with competition
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from newly introduced Japanese vehicles.
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But as sales slipped in the US,
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the VW Beetle found success abroad.
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Torchinsky: So, in America,
it was pretty much dead,
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you know, for new cars by, like, the '80s.
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But then in Mexico and
Brazil and South Africa
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and other countries, it
was still going strong.
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So every time you thought the
Beetle was dead somewhere,
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it would pop up somewhere else
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and just kind of keep on going.
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Narrator: But VW wasn't ready
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to give up on America just yet.
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In 1998, VW did what
they'd never done before.
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They introduced a
completely new Beetle model.
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It was called the New Beetle,
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but technically it more
closely resembled the VW Golf.
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Torchinsky: It was a sort of a return
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to fun in consumer design
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when things had been kind
of beige and rectilinear
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and straightforward for so long.
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It definitely made people give a damn
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about Volkswagen again.
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Narrator: With fuzzy steering
wheels and candy colors,
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the car was a nostalgic throwback.
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And it worked. Kind of.
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Keough: When you bring it back
now, 30, 40-ish years later,
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obviously, a lot of competition.
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We were getting 100,000 units
versus getting, you know,
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400,000, 450,000 units back in the '60s.
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So, clearly, the market had changed,
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but it was the right call because honestly
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it put a shot in the arm
for the entire brand.
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Narrator: And then, in
2015, Dieselgate happened.
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The scandal revealed Volkswagen
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had cheated on emission
tests on their diesel models,
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including the Beetle.
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The company paid over $30 billion
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to settle the case in 2018.
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Keough: Did it have an impact?
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Absolutely.
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And the reason it impact
is we broke the trust.
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And if you look at what the singular thing
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the Beetle was so fantastic at: trust.
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It took millions and millions
of families to school
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across America, to Woodstock, on and on.
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And the fact that this
fiasco broke that trust
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is absolutely the most unsettling thing.
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Narrator: And the Beetle's
final lap was not far behind.
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By 2018, the Beetle made
up just 4% of VW sales.
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Even with a worldwide
fandom and iconic status,
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the Beetle just wasn't
selling new units anymore.
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In 2018, Volkswagen announced
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it was ending production
of its storied car.
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Keough: Why the decision
is made to, you know,
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say bye-bye Beetle and to end the Beetle
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is frankly the market
has changed dramatically.
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Small cars struggle.
[443]
It's an SUV marketplace.
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Narrator: The final 2019
Beetle rolled off the line
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in Puebla, Mexico, in July 2019.
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After eight decades, worldwide success,
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and arguably legendary status,
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has the Volkswagen Beetle
really hit the end of the road?
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Torchinsky: I don't really buy it.
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I kind of believe we're going to see
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another version of the
Beetle down the road,
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and it's probably gonna be
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an MEB electric Beetle at some point,
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'cause they'd be crazy not to.
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Why wouldn't they do it?
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Keough: You know, with the
Beetle, never say never.
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It's not in our product portfolio.
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It's not in our plans.
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We're certainly gonna keep
its, you know, soul alive,
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as I referenced, but the MEB
is a phenomenal platform.
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We've shown a buggy off of that.
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We've shown a bus off of that.
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We've shown an SUV off of that.
[494]
Never say never.
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