VW Beetle goes extinct as last one rolls off assembly line [View all]

Originally a project under Hitler to project Nazi prestige, the Beetle really came alive after World War II.

By 1955, the 1 millionth Beetle had rolled off the assembly line in what's now the town of Wolfsburg.

The U.S. became Volkswagen's most important foreign market, peaking at 563,522 cars in 1968, or 40% of production.

Frankfurt, Germany — Volkswagen is halting production of the last version of its Beetle model this week at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. It's the end of the road for a vehicle that has symbolized many things over a history spanning the eight decades since 1938.

It has been: a part of Germany's darkest hours as a never-realized Nazi prestige project. A symbol of Germany's postwar economic renaissance and rising middle-class prosperity. An example of globalization, sold and recognized all over the world. An emblem of the 1960s counterculture in the U.S. Above all, the car remains a landmark in design, as recognizable as the Coca-Cola bottle.

The car's original design -- a rounded silhouette with seating for four or five, nearly vertical windshield and the air-cooled engine in the rear -- can be traced back to Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who was hired to fulfill German dictator Adolf Hitler's project for a "people's car" that would spread auto ownership the way the Ford Model T had in the U.S.

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The U.S. became Volkswagen's most important foreign market, peaking at 563,522 cars in 1968, or 40% of production. Unconventional, sometimes humorous advertising from agency Doyle Dane Bernbach urged car buyers to "Think small."

"Unlike in West Germany, where its low price, quality and durability stood for a new postwar normality, in the United States the Beetle's characteristics lent it a profoundly unconventional air in a car culture dominated by size and showmanship," wrote Bernhard Rieger in his 2013 history, "The People's Car."


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A 1938 Volkswagen Beetle. AP PHOTO