9781422278208

THE BEETLE

Adolf Hitler, center, behind two officers in overcoats, inspects a convertible Beetle during ceremonies in the late 1930s. Hitler demanded an aggressive campaign to supply the German people with an affordable car.

cars with the traditional use of cheap steel and wood. He went with a unibody construction with sheet metal to ensure better stability and handling. By the end of 1934, Porsche had his car. It was powered by a 984-cc air- cooled engine that generated 22-horsepower with a 5.8-to-l compression ratio. It was clearly the forerunner to the Beetle that would hit U.S. shores in 1949. Yet is was without many of the characteristics found on the later popular Beetles. Not included in the prototype design was the distinct split rear window (or pretzel window), running boards, or bumpers. The headlamps were mounted on the front bonnet and the doors were hinged at the rear. Daimler-Benz was then enlisted to construct bodies for the VW3 and later the VW30 prototypes. Headlamps were moved to the fenders and the distinct fastback emerged. Doors were still hinged at the rear, but the VW30’s rear quarter-panel windows were enlarged considerably from the VW3 prototype. The prototype would undergo a series of modest changes over the next three years, including the addition of an external oil cooler to solve some cool­ ing problems. Erwin Komenda is credited for the final design of the VW30 prototype. When the project was turned over to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), Nazi storm troopers began to vigorously test the vehicle. Porsche, meanwhile, went to the United States to observe Detroit’s automaking tech­ niques and to find more engineers of German ancestry to help him establish an automobile factory.

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