A motorcyclist passes a restaurant with the THE BEETLE IN INDIA new Beetle in India, its popularity has never steep for what is essentially a small . front of a vehicle sticking out its roof FEATURE The Love Bug came to India via Portuguese waned. But what you get is an iconic and brilliantly (August 2000) in Kathmandu. The vintage FEATURE Goa, sold by Antonio Avelar Barretto, till At the Rs. 20 lakh plus price tag, few would engineered car and a coveted piece of German “ Beetle” marks the 1962 when Goa was liberated. From then to call the New Beetle the ‘People’s Car’ automotive history that will never go out of ongoing construction site for a future DECEMBER 6, 2009. SUNDAY MiD DAY drive-thru restaurant AFP PHOTOS DECEMBER 6, 2009. SUNDAY MiD DAY 14 www.mid-day.com today, when you can once again buy a brand anymore. And some may find the price too style. Of that there is no doubt! www.mid-day.com 15

THE ICONIC BEETLE COMES TO INDIA. RISHAD SAAM MEHTA WRITES ON BEETLE-ICIOUS WHAT MADE IT THE PEOPLE’S CAR

A horse hitched to a Beetle on the streets of Hanover, November 1975 AFP PHOTOS

FUEHRER OF THE CAR: Adolf Hitler admiring the car he ordered Ferdinand to build, for the people AFP PHOTO A horse rubs its head on the bonnet of a VW Beetle, 1974 GEORGE SWEENEY/REX FEATURES

Third Reich citizens should be able to own at an equivalent of 2600RM version of the Beetle served on all fronts when people were looking for work and a cooled engine was yet at the top of the FROM a 2-dimensional hand drawn a car He thought that a smart design could during the war. It handled the winters in meaning to life. By 1946 the factory was game firing up immediately without a sketch on a paper napkin in a Munich allow for reliability, enjoyment, and THE BEAUTY IN Russia and zipped across the hot sands of producing 1000 a month. choke and delivering great driveability. restaurant in 1932 to a strobe light lit vacation travel. the deserts in North Africa. Field Marshal The ideological KdF-Wagen name was It was about this time that the car launch on the lawns of a suburban When the first rolled off the line in THE BACKSIDE Rommel once pointed out that a dropped. earned its popular nickname — the Beetle. Mumbai hotel, the has 1938 the name given to this model was Porsche drew inspiration for the Kommandeurwagen would operate where Then there was no looking back and Interestingly this Volkswagen model was spanned generations and continents. It has Kraft durch Freude (KdF)-Wagen, literally Beetle’s air cooled rear engine design from a camel bogged down. production boomed in the following never officially named the Beetle until the won adulation everywhere thanks to its ‘strength through joy car’). Its appeal was to Tatra, a Czech car maker. In fact the Nazi decade. The one-millionth car crawled off New Beetle. cute, happy look accentuated by its round be its simplicity and reliability. The specifics SS used Tatra’s rear engined, air-cooled POST-WAR the assembly line in 1955. In 1972 the Beetle had broken the lights or ‘eyes’ and the curved front given to designer Dr by vehicles as staff cars because they could do It was an era of hope. A time of change Model T Ford’s record by selling over 15 resembling a smiling face. the Fuehrer in a 1933 meeting in Hotel a comfortable 100mph with a full load. In POPULARITY with dictators and empires been done away million cars and today over 20 million The iconic star of the Herbie movies is Kaiserhof, Berlin were precise — it should that era speeds like that were the domain Only a handful of KdF-Wagens were with. The power was with the people and Beetles have been bought. the world’s best selling car — ever! carry blue-eyed Hans, blonde haired of only expensive sports cars. produced before the war started. the Beetle seemed to stand for all that. Its Rishad Saam Mehta has test-driven cars Hannah and their three cherubic children Air cooled engines were desirable When British office Major Ivan Hirst shape made a statement of style and free across India and abroad Manfred, Gretel and Otto in comfort, do an because back then there was no anti freeze arrived in 1945 to take charge of the will that would be very in-tune with the Email: [email protected] BUILD ME A A vintage picture showing women looking out of the back window of a VW Beetle AFP PHOTOS easy 60mph (96kph) on Germany’s new and a car sitting out for long in the cold Wolfburg factory in Germany’s British mindset of the swinging 60’s generation. PEOPLE’S CAR! Autobahns, and deliver 17 kilometres to a would have its liquid coolant freeze up. Zone, the first thing he did was to remove Plus each car still fulfilled Hitler’s These very curves were reputedly litre. He also demanded that the Volks- The KdF’s air cooled 985cc, 25 horsepower an unexploded bomb lodged next to original dictum to Ferdinand Porsche — The New Beetle SAFETY FEATURES: 4 airbags, Anti-lock changer in centre armrest, halogen headlamps, braking system (ABS), Electronic Stabilization power steering and heat insulating tinted glass. drawn by Hitler — his shape of a people’s Wagen or ‘People’s Car’ would retail at less engine came in a ‘flat four’ configuration irreplaceable production machinery. If this simplicity and reliability. ENGINE: 2.0 litre, 4 cylinder fuel injected petrol car to bring mobility to the masses. In an than 1000 Reichmarks at which Dr Porsche and did not suffer from this problem. In bomb had exploded the Beetle could have It had credible performance too, Programme (ESP) and engine immobilizers. PRICE: Rs. 23 lakhs (approx, on the road, with an output of 115bhp. era when only the most economic elite certainly must have paled. fact the engine was so capable that the ended there and then. boasting tolerable road handling and a top STANDARD EQUIPMENT: 15" alloy wheels, 6-CD Mumbai possessed cars, Hitler believed that all Ford, the cheapest car of the time, sold Kommandeurwagen or the military The factory started up again in a time whack of 115 kph. Its 1930’s design air- TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic