The people’s car

Who would have thought that a history of the VW Beetle could be such a good yarn? Bernhard Rieger’s [amazon_link id=”0674050916″ target=”_blank” ]The People’s Car[/amazon_link] (out on 5th April) has been ideal for a couple of days of travelling. It weaves together the separate strands contributing to the commercial and cultural success of this iconic automobile, bringing them together in a fascinating story spanning more than seven decades altogether.

[amazon_image id=”0674050916″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The People’s Car: A Global History of the Volkswagen Beetle: A Global History of the Volkswagen Bettle[/amazon_image]

One strand is the role of historical accident. The original design by Ferdinand Porsche was commissioned as a grand project by Hitler, the concept of the ‘people’s car’ playing both a populist role in embedding National Socialism and an ideological role, claiming modernity, much as the Italian Fascists did. However, Porsche put a higher priority on technical excellence than on cost, and the pre-war models were unaffordable. Very few Germans bought one. The brand new factory and city in Wolfsburg were turned to the production of military vehicles, using forced labour. After the war, the plant fell into the British occupied sector. Having considered removing the factory to Britain as a part of reparations, and rejecting the idea because it would pose too big a threat to incumbent UK car makers, the occupying forces instead put in a manager, Ivan Hirst, who was rather competent. The rocky process of ‘de-Nazification’ led to a German manager and, ultimately, a fresh start for VW and the Beetle as the symbol of the German post-war economic miracle and of Cold War ‘freedom’.

A second strand was the early introduction of Fordist production techniques, adopted after visits to Ford’s River Rouge factory before the war, and cemented by the appointment of ex-GM and Opel manager Heinrich Nordoff as VW’s post-war General Director. Although the huge success of the Beetle led to a failure to invest in new models through the 1960s, until that time the production techniques and management approach – mimicking Ford’s insistence on the importance of a well-paid workforce – allowed the cars to be produced at huge scale, so affordable price, and high quality. Britain’s auto-manufacturers never achieved that combination.

The third strand is the cultural. Rieger cites Roland Barthe’s wonderful essay in [amazon_link id=”0099529750″ target=”_blank” ]Mythologies [/amazon_link]on the Citroen DS, about the extraordinary cultural role of some cars. What’s interesting about the VW is how different it was in different countries, combining globalized production with distinct national experiences. The Beetle was the mass vehicle in Germany, was never very successful in the UK because of its Nazi origins, became a niche (often 2nd) vehicle for the American liberal suburbs and counterculture, and – news to me – was iconic and massively successful in Mexico and Brazil. VW was one of the main drivers of West Germany’s post-war export miracle. It was an export machine, and also an early example of a huge multinational producing in key markets. The book has a fascinating section on the part played by advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernach from 1959. The agency’s innovative campaigns contrasted with the macho boasting of the American Big 3, emphasising honesty and reliability by making (seemingly) modest claims about technical reliability and service quality, and successfully creating an image of a plucky, friendly, characterful little vehicle – the character picked up in the movie Herbie.

The Beetle now has an afterlife as a “postmodern retro” vehicle, as the Epilogue puts it: “Designed in California with the intention of reviving Volkswagen of America, developed in Wolfsburg, and produced in Puebla by workers on comparatively low wages,” the New Beetle was launched in 1998, although  production ended in 2003. The book ends with a hint – is it wishful thinking? – that this does not mark the end either. Another relaunch seems unlikely but even so, the Beetle certainly deserves to be labelled ‘iconic’.