The Volkswagen Beetle is a 2-door Sedan (automobile) / saloon / 2-door convertible from Volkswagen, built from 1938 to 2003, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together. Under the bonnet: Volkswagen air-cooled engine. Ferdinand Porsche drew it. The total made was 21,529,464.
The background
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially the Volkswagen Type 1, is a small family car produced by the German company Volkswagen from 1938 to 2003. A global cultural icon known for its bug-like design, the Beetle is widely regarded as one of the most influential cars of the 20th century. Its production period of 65 years is the longest for any single generation of automobile. With 21.5 million units produced over twenty locations worldwide, the Beetle is the best-selling car of a single platform in history and the second best-selling car nameplate of the 20th century. The Beetle was conceived in the early 1930s, when the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, decided there was a need for a people's car—an inexpensive, simple, mass-produced car—to serve Germany's new road network, the Reichsautobahn.
Engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his design team began developing and designing the car in the early 1930s, but the fundamental design concept can be attributed to Béla Barényi in 1925, predating Porsche's claims by almost ten years. The result was the Volkswagen Type 1 and the introduction of the Volkswagen brand. Volkswagen initially slated production for the late 1930s, but the outbreak of World War II in 1939 delayed production until the war ended in 1945. The car was originally called the Volkswagen Type 1 and marketed simply as the Volkswagen; it was not until 1968 that it was officially named the "Beetle". Volkswagen implemented designations for the Beetle in the 1960s, including 1200, 1300, 1500, 1600, 1302, and 1303. The company introduced a series of large luxury models throughou
The engineering
Power comes from Volkswagen air-cooled engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 730 -. It shifts through a 4-speed manual transmission / manual transaxle / 4-speed Saxomat Semi-automatic transmission / semi-automatic / 3-speed Autostick semi-automatic. The layout matters: the engine hangs behind the rear axle, a layout that gives ferocious traction out of a corner and a reputation to match on the way in. The wheelbase is 2400 -. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: its successor was the Volkswagen Golf Mk1 / Volkswagen Gol#First generation (Typ30, 1980) / Volkswagen Gol (G1) / Volkswagen New Beetle; assembly was at Full list. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Lincoln Continental, the Datsun Type 17, the Fiat 2800 — show what else the money bought that year. Its Volkswagen stablemates include the Volkswagen Apollo and the Volkswagen Routan.
What it costs now
The money question first: $7,500–$21,300 is the typical asking range today, and running it — fuel and maintenance at its age — costs about $3,249–$6,330 a year. Insurance sits around $1,020–$1,930 a year. The figures are class-level estimates from the federal record, with the formula on the methodology page; the model-year pages carry complaints, recalls and repair costs year by year.