Design Classics

The Volkswagen Beetle (1x3)

: 15, 1987

Hitler called it the 'strength through joy' car, and he meant it to be one of the engineering triumphs of the Third Reich. But it was the British army which put it into production, after the war. Rootes and Ford - offered the chance to manufacture it - turned the car down; they didn't think it had a future. Twenty million Beetles later, it's still being produced in Mexico. How did the noisy, heavy, distinctly odd-looking motor car with its roots in a Nazi past become lovable, a family friend, the sort of car Walt Disney made films about? So that it really did become a 'people's car'.