Russell Hayes - Volkswagen Beetles and Buses

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Russell Hayes

Ferry Porsche, son of Beetle creator Ferdinand, at the wheel of the V2 prototype, the single convertible, in 1935. This first series of cars had inboard-mounted headlights.

A s Germany emerged from the rubble of World War II, an odd-looking little car with its engine at the back was slowly being put back into production by British forces in a new but bomb-damaged car factory in a new northern German city, called Wolfsburg.

The car had been introduced to the world in the late 1930s. On July 3, 1938, the New York Times used the nickname Beetle for the first time. Of course, at the time, its only name was the KdF-Wagen, for Kraft durch Freude: strength through joy.

Production of the Volkswagen Type 11 sedan (as it was now designated by the British) began falteringly, with the assembly of fifty-five vehicles from December 27, 1945, to the end of the year. In March 1946, 1,000 Beetles were built in a month for the first time, and total annual production went on to be 10,020. The impetus was an ambitious order for twenty-thousand cars for the British Military Government, which was running the German administration through the Control Commission for Germany (CCG). In addition, sizable orders were received from the United States and French armed forces, and cars were also supplied to essential German services.

Other small European cars of 1946 vintage were, of necessity, mildly updated designs of prewar models. New designs were yet to come, but for now, standard minimal four-seat motoring usually meant a water-cooled engine (with a radiator and pump) at the front driving the rear wheels through a three-speed gearbox. Steel bodywork was usually mounted atop a heavy ladder-type chassis, and the ensemble had the aerodynamic advantages of a brick. Front wheels sprung independently of each other were considered advanced; the typical rear axle was usually suspended by leaf springs like a carriage and bounced along in a similar fashion.

The Volkswagen was a fascinating contrast. Ferdinand Porsches prewar design had been driven by the cheapest possible manufacturing cost yet was forward thinking. It had detachable all-steel bodywork mounted on a flat platform-type chassis, most of which was load-bearing and gave a flat floor for the four to five occupants. A rear-mounted, air-cooled 1,131cc flat-four enginewhere the cylinders sat horizontally and powered a central crankshaftsent power forward to a four-speed gearbox then via short driveshafts outward to the rear wheels, which, like the front, were independently sprung, this time with simple swing axles hinged at the transmission. A cooling fan driven from the dynamo shaftwhich in turn was belt-drivenwas mounted vertically behind the engine and ducted air across the cylinders via a metal casing. Where traditional engines had heavy cast-iron blocks, the Volkswagen engine and gearbox housing were lightweight-pressure die-cast aluminum.

The 19411944 Type 87 was a four-wheel drive KdF-Wagen known as the Kommandeurswagen (commanding officers car).

Possibly taken in May 1945, the month after the factory was abandoned, The Autocars image of half-finished Kbelwagens at the bombed Volkswagen works refers only to the nearby village of Fallersleben; Wolfsburg was in the future.

Volkswagen came under British control in June 1945, a month after the town was named Wolfsburg. The sign points to English office and factory management.

Although paraded extensively in Germany before the war and covered in international press reports, the new car was still largely unknown to the rest of the automotive world. The Allied forces now took a hard look at the captured cars and factory. The Volkswagen sedan has long been believed to have been dismissed outright by major American and British carmakers, but in their limited technical assessments of captured cars in 1946, there were many hints that they knew this was a very smart small car.

Since 1942, American and English forces had sampled the abilities of the military version of the Volkswagen, the Type 82 Kbelwagen, many of which were abandoned as Rommels armies withdrew from North Africa. In reports on German industry, their motor manufacturers assessed both military and civilian Volkswagens as production propositions for Germany under their own manufacture.

Humber, part of the comfortably conservative Rootes Group of Coventry in England, had already received a desert-sand-filled Kbelwagen from the North African desert campaigns for assessment in 1943, and in 1946, a tired Volkswagen Type 11 arrived in England. Humber engineers subjected them to a full range of tests, while Singer Motors and AC Cars each tested a Kbelwagen and Ford of England bench-tested a Kbelwagen engine.

The First British Beetle Test

In the spring of 1947, the British weekly magazine The Motor was generously loaned a pre-export Beetle by its RAF owner while he was on leave in Britain. It calculated the German price would equate to just 160the same figure extended to British troops. In England, the Ford Anglia held the title of Britains least expensive car at 309, tax paid.

Covering several hundred miles in the Volkswagen (it had already reached its 2,500-mile first inspection point), the testers fascination showed from the first paragraph: It is difficult to think of any car in the popular priced class which is in more striking contrast to current British models. The magazine found it to be a genuine four-seater versatile enough to withstand hard roads usage on either rough and steep mountain roads or open continental motor roads, referring to motorways yet to arrive in Britain.

The sweetness and the precision of the controls was noted, with the engine heard as a faint background hum on the move but noisy in town. The non-synchromesh gearbox proved delightful to handle, with the understressed engine running as low as 2,850 rpm at 60 miles per hour thanks to the high fourth-gear ratio. The maximum speed of 61.2 miles per hour was not considered the best from the 25-brake-horsepower engine, as the car was tested in gale-force winds and the carburetor appeared in need of resetting. Fuel consumption was 27 miles per gallon. The test astutely concluded that the German peoples car that was to have been, strikes the driver as a sound job which should give long years of service with the minimum of attention.