It remained a top seller in the US even as rear-wheel drive conventional subcompacts were refined and eventually replaced by front-wheel drive models. The Beetle car was the benchmark for both generations of American compact cars such as the Chevrolet Corvair and subcompact cars such as the Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega. In the international poll for the award of the world's most influential car of the twentieth century the Beetle came fourth after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.

"The People's Car"
Starting in 1931 Ferdinand Porsche and Zündapp develop the "Auto für Jedermann" (car for everybody), first time the name "Volkswagen" was used. Porsche already prefered the 4-cylinder Flat 4 engine, but Zündapp used a watercooled 5-cylinder radial engine. In 1932 three prototypes were running. All of those cars were lost during the war; the last in 1945 in Stuttgart during a bombing raid.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler submitted sketches to Ferdinand Porsche of a proposed "Volks-Wagen" ("People's Car"), a basic vehicle that should be capable of transporting two adults and three children at a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). The People's Car would be made available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings scheme at 990 Reichsmark, about the price of a small motorcycle at the time (an average income being around 32RM/week).Hitler's commissioning of the "People's Car" did not necessitate a clean-sheet car design. Ferdinand Porsche formulated the original parameters of a car design similar to the final production version of the Beetle several years before it was commissioned, and had built working prototypes by 1931. Erwin Komenda, Porsche's chief designer, was responsible for the design and styling of the car. Production only became financially viable, however, when it was backed by the Third Reich. War broke out before the large-scale production of the "People's Car" could commence and manufacturing capacity was shifted to producing military vehicles. Production of civilian VW automobiles did not start until after the post-war occupation began.

The military Beetle & production up to 1945
Initially called the Porsche 60 by Ferdinand Porsche, it was officially named the KdF-Wagen when the project was launched. The name refers to Kraft durch Freude, or "Strength through Joy", the official leisure organization in the Third Reich. It was later known as the Type 1, but became more commonly known as the Beetle after World War II.Prototypes appeared from 1931 onwards; the first prototypes were produced by Zündapp in Nürnberg, Germany, the Porsche Type 12. Next prototype series (Porsche Typ 32) was built in 1933 by NSU, another motorcycle company. In October 1935 the first Type 60 was ready. 1935 the testing of the "V 3" started. The "VW30" Prototypes awaited further testing in 1937. All cars already had the distinctive round shape and the air-cooled, rear-mounted engine, except for the Type 12, Zündapp preferred a 5-cylinder radial watercooled engine.The factory had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939. Consequently, the first volume-produced versions of the car's chassis were military vehicles, the Jeep-like Kübelwagen Typ 82 (approx. 52,000 built) and the amphibious Schwimmwagen Typ 166 (approx. 14,000 built).The car was designed to be as simple as possible mechanically, so that there was less to go wrong; the aircooled 985 cc 25 hp (19 kW) motors proved especially effective in actions of the German Afrika Korps in Africa's desert heat. This was due to the built-in oil-cooler and the superior performance of the flat-four engine configuration. The innovative suspension design used compact torsion bars instead of coil or leaf springs.The city of Stadt des KdF-Wagens was created in Lower Saxony in 1938 for the benefit of the workers at the factory.A handful of civilian-specific Beetles were produced, primarily for the Nazi elite, in the years 1940–1945, but production figures were small. In response to gasoline shortages, a few wartime "Holzbrenner" Beetles were fueled by wood pyrolysis gas producers under the hood. In addition to the Kübelwagen, Schwimmwagen, and handful of others, the factory managed another wartime vehicle: the Kommandeurwagen; a Beetle body mounted on the Kübelwagen chassis.A total of 669 Kommandeurwagens were produced until 1945, when all production was halted due to heavy damage sustained in Allied air raids on the factory. Much of the essential equipment had already been moved to underground bunkers for protection, allowing production to resume quickly once hostilities had ended.

Conflict with Tatra
Much of the Beetle's design was inspired by the advanced Tatra cars of Hans Ledwinka, particularly the T97. This car also had a streamlined body and a rear-mounted 4 cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine. The Tatra V570, a prototype for a smaller car, also shows quite a resemblance to the later Volkswagens. According to the book Car Wars, Adolf Hitler called the Tatra 'the kind of car I want for my highways'.[3] In the same book, it is said that Ferdinand Porsche admitted 'to have looked over Ledwinka's shoulders' while designing the Volkswagen. Tatra launched a lawsuit, but this was stopped when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. At the same time, Tatra was forced to stop producing the T97. The matter was re-opened after WW2 and in 1961 Volkswagen paid Tatra 3,000,000 Deutsche Marks in compensation. These damages meant that Volkswagen had little money for the development of new models and the Beetle's production life was necessarily extended. Tatra ceased producing passenger cars and is now a truck manufacturer.

Post-war Production & Boom
After the end of World War II a shortage of local jobs led to the Wolfsburg factory being re-opened by Allied forces and production of the Type 1 recommencing. The re-opening of the factory is largely accredited to British army officer Major Ivan Hirst (1916–2000). Hirst was ordered to take control of the heavily bombed factory, which the Americans had captured. His first task was to remove an unexploded bomb which had fallen through the roof and lodged itself between some pieces of irreplaceable production equipment; if the bomb had exploded, the Beetle's fate would have been sealed. Hirst persuaded the British military to order 20,000 of the cars, and by 1946 the factory was producing 1,000 cars a month. During this period the car and its town changed their Nazi-era names to Volkswagen (people's car) and Wolfsburg, respectively. The first 1,785 Beetles were made in a factory near Wolfsburg in 1945.Following the Army-led restart of production, Heinz Nordhoff was appointed director of the Volkswagen factory, under whom production increased dramatically over the following decade, with the one-millionth car coming off the assembly line by 1955. During this Post-war period, the Beetle had superior performance in its category with a top speed of 115 km/h (72 mph) and 0-100 km/h (0-60 mph) in 27.5 seconds on 7.6 l/100 km (31mpg) for the standard 25 kW (34 hp) engine. This was far superior to the Citroen 2CV and Morris Minor and even competitive with more modern small cars like the Mini of the 1960s and later.The engine fired up immediately without a choke and could only be heard in the car when idling. It had excellent road-handling and was economical to maintain. Although a small car, the engine has great elasticity and gave the feeling of better output than its small nominal size. However, the opinion of some in the United States was not as flattering out of frustration that it was the top-selling foreign car in the US market. Henry Ford II once described the car as 'A little box. During the 1960s and early 1970s, innovative advertising campaigns and a reputation for reliability and sturdiness helped production figures to surpass the levels of the previous record holder, the Ford Model T, when Beetle No. 15,007,034 was produced on February 17, 1972. By 1973 total production was over 16 million, and by June 23, 1992 there had been over 21 million produced.The Beetle is the world's best-selling car design; though more units of the Toyota Corolla brand have been sold, there have been many total redesigns of the Corolla, each amounting to a new car design with the same name.

VW Beetle 1967
The Volkswagen Beetle underwent significant changes for the 1967 model. While the car appeared similar to earlier models, much of the drivetrain was noticeably upgraded. Some of the changes to the Beetle included a bigger engine for the second year in a row. Horsepower had been increased to 37 kW (50 hp) the previous year, and for 1967 it was increased even more, to 40 kW (53 hp).The output of the electrical generator was increased from 180 to 360 watts, and upgraded from a 6-volt to a 12-volt system. The clutch disc also increased in size, and changes were made to the flywheel, braking system, and rear axles. New standard equipment included two-speed windshield wipers, back-up lights, a driver's armrest on the door, locking buttons on the doors, sealed-beam headlights, and a driver's side exterior mirror.The price was $1,640, and it weighed 840 kg (1850 lb) which was a typical weight for a European car at this time. Top speed was 130 km/h (82 mph), enough to match the 110 km/h (70 mph) top speed of American freeways.

Beetle derivatives
While production of the standard Beetle continued, a Type 1 variant called the Super Beetle, produced from model year 1971 to 1979 (1302s from 1971 to 1972, and 1303s from 1973 onwards), offered MacPherson strut front suspension, better turning radius (despite having a 20 mm (3/4 in) longer wheelbase), and approximately double the usable space in the front luggage compartment, due to the stretched "nose" of the vehicle and relocation of the spare tire from a vertical to a horizontal position.1972 Super Beetles had a slightly larger rear window, larger front brakes, and four rows of vents on the engine lid. The tail lights now incoporated reversing lights. The front seats incorporated headrests, and the steering wheel was changed to four spokes for safety reasons. A socket for the VW Dealer Diagnosis was fitted inside the engine compartment. In 1973, a padded dashboard, 2-speed heater fan, higher rear mudguards, a more aerodynamically curved windscreen and larger tail lights (nicknamed 'elephant's feet' were added. 1975 and later Super Beetles had rack and pinion steering, and a larger license plate lamp housing below the engine lid. The front indicators were moved into the bumper bars on European models. Carburetors were replaced by Air Flow Control (AFC) Fuel Injection on U. S. and Canadian Beetles, a derivative of the more complex Bosch fuel injection system used in the Volkswagen Type III.In 1976, the Super Beetle and 1300 were discontinued (though convertibles remained Super Beetles) and replaced with an 'improved' standard Beetle with 1600cc engine, IRS rear suspension, front disc brakes, blinkers in the front bumpers, elephant's foot tail lights and rubber inserts in the bumper bars.The Super Beetle (VW 1302 and 1303 series, also called Type 113) is not the only Type 1 variant; other VWs under the Type 1 nomenclature include the Karmann Ghia and the VW 181 utility vehicle, as well as the Brasilia and the Australian Country Buggy (locally produced in Australia using VW parts).The Type 2 transporter ("bus") is based on the Beetle platform with very similar mechanicals, but with a box shaped body and driver placed over the front wheels. This variant would inspire a generation of compact vans, and later minivans in capacity and size. Also, as mentioned below, Type 3 and Type 4 were all developments of the original Porsche design.