The Volkswagen Beetle

Overview

Hitler called it the 'strength through joy' car and he meant it to be one of the engineering triumphs of the Third Reich. But it was the British Army who put it into production after the war. Rootes and Ford turned the car down; they didn't think it had a future. Twenty million Beetles later, it's still being produced - in Mexico. How did the noisy, heavy, distinctly odd-looking motor car, with its roots in a Nazi past, become regarded as lovable, a family friend - the sort of car Walt Disney made films about - so that it really did become a 'people's car'?