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Herbie was fun and Bumblebee was a hero, but whichever of the two characters is your favorite, they are basically animated versions of the same popular car, the Volkswagen Beetle. The Volkswagen Beetle is undoubtedly the most popular Volkswagen vehicle not only in Germany where it originated but also in the whole world. This popularity is not only brought by its Disney and Transformer fame, but generally because of its distinctive style and its reputation of reliability. So popular it became that it is now enjoying a "cult" status. And this popularity has also prompted Volkswagen AG to bring back the name and style of the car in 1998 as the New Beetle.
The Volkswagen Beetle was actually the product of Adolf Hitler's dream for every German to have an affordable vehicle and of Ferdinand Porsche's ingenuity to design and engineer the car. As early as 1935, prototypes of the car had been made and by 1938, the first few production units of the vehicle have been made. The first production models of the car, however, were military vehicles instead of civilian vehicles.
Fast-forward after the Second World War, Volkswagen has to start from scratch in their production of vehicles. And without enough funds to design a new vehicle model, the Volkswagen Beetle remained to be the only vehicle model manufactured by the company. With much help from British army officer Major Ivan Hirst, the company was able to recover, and by 1946, the company was producing 1,000 cars a month. This spelled the start of the Volkswagen Beetle's success.
In the 1960s until the early 1970s, the Volkswagen Beetle was the hottest car manufactured by the company. Production and sales figures continued to grow and by 1972, the Volkswagen Beetle has broken the record established by the Ford Model T as to the number of production models sold. It continued to become popular for a few more years until it faced competition from the Japanese import vehicle market, which also marked its decline.
After the 1970s, the production of the Volkswagen Beetle slowly dropped until the brands eventual demise in 2003. But the popularity of the brand held on, as proven by the people's reaction when the New Beetle, an entirely new different car with the same name and appearance, was introduced. Equipped with new Volkswagen Beetle parts, the New Beetle is sure to replace the aging image presented by the old Beetle.
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