With More Than 15 Million Made, This Iconic Car Became the World’s Most Popular on This Day in 1972
Blockbuster movies and the Beatles helped popularize Volkswagen’s uniquely shaped and affordable little car
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/sarah.png)
Volkswagen Beetle No. 15,007,034 rolled off the assembly line on February 17, 1972, in a feat that made automotive history. The Beetle became the most produced—and most popular—car ever made, dethroning industry legend Henry Ford and his Model T.
The Beetle began driving on this path to success in 1933 when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the eponymous luxury car brand, to create “Volkswagen,” which roughly translates from German to English as “the people’s car.” Porsche was instructed to create a small, affordable vehicle that could transport two adults and three children.
This simple mandate yielded a distinctive, curved shape. The initial intent of this shape was to be aerodynamic and efficient. However, it quickly caught attention, turning into an icon of the German auto world even as it spread Nazi ideals of the “Volk,” Hitler’s word for ethnic Germans, and popularized one of Hitler’s signature public works programs, the autobahn system.
Initially called the “Kraft durch Freude” (“Strength Through Joy”) or “KdF” car, the vehicle was a rolling advertisement for Hitler’s campaign of the same name, which provided leisure activities for German workers financed by compulsory donations. But though some prototype KdF cars were produced, it would take until the end of World War II—and the end of the Nazi Reich—for the simply named “Volkswagen Series 1” car to enter mass production.
The car had a nondescript name, but its looks captured global attention. Soon after, its iconic shape began to earn it nicknames like “Beetle” and, globally, “Vocho,” “Coccinelle” and “Maggiolino.”
Production and popularity continued to pick up after World War II, with the car entering the U.S. market in 1949. There, a massive ad campaign focusing on its affordability and reliability—and detracting from its Nazi roots—helped attract eager buyers.
Pop culture—including the endorsement of several notable celebrities—also helped make it the most popular car in history. 1969 was a particularly important year for this campaign of mass adoption. The second-highest-grossing film in North America that year was The Love Bug, featuring a sentient VW Beetle named Herbie. This quickly turned Volkswagen’s “people’s car” into a household name in the United States.
That same year, the Beatles gave the vehicle a major, although perhaps unintentional, endorsement. Photographer Iain Macmillan captured the photo that would become the Abbey Road album cover, featuring Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr crossing the street in a single-file line. In the background is a white Beetle, parked partially on the sidewalk.
By 1972, it seemed Porsche had achieved his initial goal. The unique look of the Beetle continued to attract consumers, as did its relatively affordable price. The 1970 model had an original list price of $1,839, worth about $15,000 in today’s dollars—a steal considering that the average new vehicle now sells for more than $47,000. The car’s unique look—and its celebrity connections—attracted young, countercultural buyers, making the vehicle a perfect fit for the freewheeling 1960s and ’70s.
Volkswagen doubled down on its little car after hitting its 1972 milestone, and Hollywood followed suit, featuring the car in everything from Austin Powers movies to Transformers. Over the following decades, the company would more closely examine its Nazi roots and make reparations to wartime victims of forced labor in its factories. By the time the company decided to retire the Bug in 2019, 70 years after its initial U.S. sale, more than 23 million Beetle vehicles had been sold around the world.
