How To Clean Sticky From Plastic On 99 Vw Beetle

Two festival goers that institute Woodstock also much lay passed out on the bonnet and roof of their Volkswagen Beetle. Credit: Three Lions/Getty Images

These days, we call up of the Volkswagen Beetle every bit an emblem of 1967'south Summer of Dear. The well-known counterculture social phenomenon put San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood on the map — and information technology helped the Beetle solidify its place equally a hippie symbol. Simply at that place's more to the "love bug" than its late '60s success story. In fact, the VW Beetle benefited greatly from ane of the most successful rebranding efforts in modern history.

The Origins of Volkswagen: Earth War II

While the VW Beetle is now synonymous with gratuitous love and the 1960s, the vehicle'southward darker origins began a skilful three decades prior. In 1933, white supremacist and German dictator Adolf Hitler announced what he called a "people's motorization," and, the following yr, the Reich Association of the German language Automobile Industry officially challenged the country's automotive industry to develop a "volks wagen," or people's car.

The body of the Beetle is mounted on the chassis at the Volkswagen Factory in Wolfsburg in 1962. Credit: Erich Andres/United Images/Getty Images

But this alleged "machine of the people" effort was something of a propaganda-minded guise. That is, Ferdinand Porsche developed the vehicle under the motto "forcefulness through pleasure," and aimed to make an all-terrain vehicle for Nazi military employ. In fact, the car's brochure stated that information technology was "suitable not just for personal use merely as well for transport and particular military purposes." Past May of 1938, Volkswagen'due south Wolfsburg-based factory opened and began churning out vehicles.

Later on Nazi forces were defeated in 1945, Germany's automotive production factories were put nether the control of the British government. More than than 10,000 Beetles were manufactured past the end of 1946, and, by the end of the decade, Volkswagen had sold around one million Beetles. In fact, information technology was also during this time that the now-iconic Volkswagen model was dubbed the "Protrude."

Undoubtedly, distancing the Beetle from its unsettling, dark roots was a large undertaking, but, within less than ii decades, the vehicle would be reclaimed. And transformed into a counterculture symbol for anti-war, anti-government folks who celebrated gratuitous love.

Protrude-Mania: Marketing Was Primal to the VW Beetle's Success

In 1972, the Wolfsburg manufacturing institute hit a notable milestone: It had manufactured 15,007,034 Beetles, thus surpassing the amount of Ford Model T cars. So, how did this rebranded vehicle's popularity surge? The VW Beetle was affordable — and compact.

Offset off, it's air-cooled engine, for example, was much smaller and lighter than a water-cooled system. This notable feature also made information technology much easier to maintain and repair the car. Not only was the Beetle less of an investment upfront, but information technology didn't price owners a ton overtime. Additionally, The Beetle's size was a key factor in its popularity in the United States.

Crafted by the New York-based ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, what's been dubbed "one of the greatest advertising campaigns of all fourth dimension" helped make the Beetle the "biggest selling foreign-made machine in America throughout the '60s" (via BBC). This 1959 "Call up Small-scale" entrada was a difference from traditional automotive advert, which was full of bluster, fantasy and illustrations of the vehicle. Instead, "Call back Small" featured simple, clean photographs of the Protrude, presenting it as a practical, compact alternative to the muscle cars and gas-guzzlers on the marketplace.

"The message was ane of smart anti-luxury," a automobile blog points out. "[And it] took gentle aim at an industry obsessed with superficiality and styling, rather than the substance underneath the car bodies." In many ways, it'southward a lot like Apple's initial marketing stance and aesthetic: Keep it minimal and emphasize those everyday needs.

That clever marketing angle, combined with a low price and quirky appearance, helped cement the Beetle as an early on symbol of '60s counterculture. (Well, alongside its cousin, the VW van.) "For the Woodstock generation, driving a Protrude or its larger cousin, the Volkswagen van, was a class of protestation against materialism and the gas guzzlers churned out by the big American carmakers," The New York Times notes.

The VW Beetle'southward Popularity Continues Post-1960s

Beetles were produced in Germany until 1978, after which product shifted to factories in Brazil and Mexico. In fact, the last Volkswagen Beetle was produced in Mexico in July 2003. Past that betoken, approximately xxx,000 Beetles were produced weekly, a figure that stands in stark contrast to the 1,300,000 Beetles produced every vii days in 1971.

Photograph Courtesy: Erich Andres/United Images/Getty Images

In 1997, Volkswagen introduced the "New Beetle," which, amid other changes, featured the engine in the front rather than the rear. The New Beetle was produced until 2003, before becoming the A5 Volkswagen Beetle, which was sold until 2019. (A scandal involving Volkswagen'south attempted violation of the Clean Air Act certainly didn't help, particularly in the historic period of green-minded, electric vehicles.)

In full, a staggering 23 million Beetle models were sold over an 83-year period. So, will this pop culture icon be back any time presently? In December 2020, the CEO of Volkswagen, Scott Keogh, was asked just that. "You lot know, with the Protrude, never say never," Keogh said. "We're certainly gonna go on its, you know, soul alive."