Thinking small but driving large

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1970 Volkswagen Beetle

Few cars have had as dramatic a history as the Volkswagen Beetle and few cars have been as loved by their owners.

Andrea Hiott, born and educated in the U.S. and now living in Berlin where she is the editor of the online cultural journal Pulse, takes on the substantial task of describing the car's history and explaining its appeal in this overly detailed book.

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2012 Volkswagen Beetle (CP)

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She places the Volkswagen in its historical and popular culture contexts, discussing the car's political significance in the Nazi era and its economic significance in the postwar recovery of West Germany, using the story as a jumping off point to talk about broader issues.

More than 21 million Beetles were built. Although it was designed in Germany the 1930s and some cars were built there before the war, production of the car really began in 1945 and continued in Germany until 1980.

There were overseas assembly plants and factories in countries such as Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico. Production of the Beetle at the Mexican plant, the last location to build the car, ceased in 2003, though they are still being made with a more modern design.

Thinking Small is heavy going at times. It would have benefited from editing -- Hiott's background information tends to get in the way of her story. Everyone and everything remotely connected to the car seems to receive a detailed treatment that can go on for pages until the reader wonders when the Volkswagen story will resume.

Nevertheless, Hiott does provide a very complete account of the Beetle, starting with the biography of Ferdinand Porsche, who was the original designer of the car. She explains how Adolf Hitler, a car buff and, like Porsche, an Austrian, admired the great engineer's designs and chose him to produce his "people's car."

Hitler's motives were of course political. He always associated himself with the German auto industry -- think of all the photos you have seen of him in a Mercedes -- and showcased his road building policies and the subsidies he provided for racing cars.

Volkswagen was a project of the Nazi government and the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg was originally built with money taken from the dues workers paid to the official Nazi union movement. Hitler wanted an inexpensive car for the German worker that would create a bond between the people and the Nazi Party.

Volkswagen became part of the German military machine once the war started and built thousands of the tough, versatile Kubelwagens prized by the army. Porsche also worked on designs for tanks and V1 Rocket.

The factory was heavily bombed and when the war ended, there was a period when the future of the Beetle seemed bleak. The British, who were in control of the zone in which the factory stood, began producing cars again and then, in 1949, signed the plant over to German control.

By that time the brilliant general manager, Heinrich Nordhoff was in charge. Nordhoff would lead the company during its period of stupendous growth during the next two decades.

Hiott also tells the story of the DDB Advertising Agency that made Volkswagen a bestseller in the U.S.. DDB's ad campaign for Volkswagen was launched in 1959, at a time when people were starting to grow disillusioned with the excessive consumerism of the 1950s.

The ads encouraged people to "think small" and stressed car's low fuel consumption and high quality and helped make the Beetle the leading imported car in the U.S. with sales in the millions.

Hiott is only partly successful in producing a readable and interesting book. Those who want to know about the Beetle might want to also try some of the other available histories.

K.B. Hopfinger's The Volkswagen Story (1971) and Karl Ludvigsen's Battle for the Beetle (2000) cover much of the same ground.

Jim Blanchard, a Winnipeg librarian and historian, still misses his Beetle, which he sold 25 years ago.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2012 J7