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VOLKSWAGEN Guide: Service and Secrets of the World’ Most Talked-About Small Car
VOLKSWAGEN Guide: Service and Secrets of the World’ Most Talked-About Small Car
VOLKSWAGEN Guide: Service and Secrets of the World’ Most Talked-About Small Car
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VOLKSWAGEN Guide: Service and Secrets of the World’ Most Talked-About Small Car

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“At any price, Herr Dr. Porsche. At any price below 1000 marks ($250),” laughed Hitler as he ordered the inauguration of the Volkswagen project in the late summer of 1933.
The scene was Berlin’s Hotel Kaiserhof where Hitler, meeting with Germany’s most famous automotive engineer, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, was outlining plans for a “people’s car.” Hitler wanted, for the German worker, a car that would travel the autobahns, at reasonably high speed, provide gasoline mileage in the 30 to 35 miles per gallon class and be simply constructed and inexpensive to repair. Also, it had to cost less than any other car on the European market.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 23, 2016
ISBN9788896365991
VOLKSWAGEN Guide: Service and Secrets of the World’ Most Talked-About Small Car

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    VOLKSWAGEN Guide - Bill Carroll

    Heads

    1. Hitler Orders a Peoples Car

    At any price, Herr Dr. Porsche. At any price below 1000 marks ($250), laughed Hitler as he ordered the inauguration of the Volkswagen project in the late summer of 1933.

    The scene was Berlin’s Hotel Kaiserhof where Hitler, meeting with Germany’s most famous automotive engineer, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, was outlining plans for a people’s car. Hitler wanted, for the German worker, a car that would travel the autobahns, at reasonably high speed, provide gasoline mileage in the 30 to 35 miles per gallon class and be simply constructed and inexpensive to repair. Also, it had to cost less than any other car on the European market.

    Back at his offices in Stuttgart, Dr. Porsche called his staff together so they could collectively ponder the problems of producing an inexpensive car. How could it be done? What about production rates? Was there a factory in Germany that could do the job? Should they start over, or redesign one of the previous experimental small cars?

    There were conferences with body designers and power-plant engineers, hopeful discussions of previously rejected ideas, and dreams of new approaches which might make production of such an inexpensive car possible. Hitler was advised of progress by the group through frequent reports but neither indicated approval nor rejection of the Porsche plans. Finally, on March 3, 1934, German newspapers were filled with reports of a most unusual speech made by Hitler at the opening of the Berlin Auto Show. This time it was no political tirade.

    Hitler opened the show with a bombshell, telling the audience that within ten years the ordinary German workman would have his own car, at a price he could afford—less than a thousand marks! Only then did Porsche, who was in the audience, know that his staff’s initial proposals for the People’s Car project had met with Der Führer's approval.

    The First Three VW’s

    Soon afterward the VW project became a full grown automotive design operation when Porsche contracted with the Association of the German Automobile Industry to design a People’s Car, produce three prototypes for testing and spend not more than 200,000 marks ($50,000).

    Body engineers began to plan on reducing the cost of production to an irreducible minimum. Engine men considered two-stroke and four-stroke engines, hoping against hope to find an answer to the fantastically low price set by Hitler. One engineer even suggested the double piston engine used in motorcycles as a possible power source. But in the end a conventional four cylinder opposed engine like that used today was accepted as most suitable—provided production runs were high.

    Finally, in late 1936, three Porsche-built prototypes were delivered to the association of automobile makers for testing. No smooth showroom models, these first three cars were crude handmade sedans for testing and engineering evaluation. Headlights were mounted in tubes projecting from the front fender, a horn was mounted outside the body, just behind the front bumper, while one-third of the front deck lid opened at the center. Doors were hinged at the rear and turning door handles were mounted in huge hand recesses stamped into each door panel. Running boards were conspicuous by their absence, while tiny chromed caps covered ends of the axle shafts, leaving the disk wheel bolts exposed.

    But in spite of their crudity, the three little cars ran and ran and ran, piling up over 30,000 miles per car. More conferences followed, with Germany's greatest car makers questioning Porsche’s viewpoint that such a car could be sold for less than $250. In the end the Association of Automobile Makers forwarded a positive report to Hitler.

    Enter the Strength-Through-Joy Boys

    Robert Ley, head of the Nazi Strength-Through-Joy movement, on the basis of this approval, was directed by Hitler to build a plant for production of the new German People’s Car. A corporation was organized and initial financing made available from Ley’s quasi-official treasury. No small undertaking even for a country the size of Germany, the Volkswagen project could only have been financed by the government. Costs actually exceeded all available private financing, and without the backing of the Nazi government and assistance from the treasury there would never have been a People’s Car.

    The new Volkswagen, then labelled the KDF Wagen, was used as propaganda when it was employed to transport some 70 foreign journalists over the spreading network of Autobahn highways under construction by the Government. This picture, taken early in 1939, except for the single outlet muffler, resembles closely the current production. Wide World Photos.

    With money available, 30 prototypes were built by craftsmen of Daimler-Benz, producer of the famous Mercedes car. It has been reported that Daimler needed only four months to produce these additional prototypes, each one of the showroom perfect condition and quality finish for which Mercedes is so well known.

    Known as Series 30 cars, their rugged testing began in June 1937. A troop of Nazi SS Stormtroopers were relieved from their usual duties to participate in a 1½ million mile test of the prototypes. Day and night, week in and week out, the little cars hustled over carefully selected routes. Fifty thousand miles were put on each car, with the most careful engineering notations made of every failure. After the first tests were completed, another thirty cars were built (the Series 60) and tested for an equal length of time during one of Germany’s most severe winters, the winter of 1937. Instruments fitted to many of the cars recorded test run after test run to provide Porsche engineers with every bit of data they needed to complete engineering of their People’s Car.

    Wolfsburg Is Born

    Until now, the location and building of a factory to produce this unusual car had been ignored. But with the car nearly ready for production, the need for a factory became a pressing point. Again Ley’s Nazi Party Labor Organization picked up the ball and ran. A young architect named Peter Koller was selected to design the plant and a complete village for the 100,000 people who would work in the factory. Factory sites all over Germany were considered, but because of inadequate transportation facilities most possibilities had to be discarded. In the end, a secluded country estate was taken over by the Nazi government, and construction plans turned to action.

    The plant was originally planned as two complete units, with a separate power station to develop 8000 k.w. supplying both the works and the neighboring Wolfsburg township. The power station and only one factory unit were completed before the outbreak of war.

    The factory consisted of four large buildings and a power house, all connected by passageways, and was designed to produce 1000 cars per day. The ground area covered was about 4000 by 1000 feet, the front building being four stories high with 19 wings projecting along the frontage. In addition to normal office accommodations, each of the 19 wings had facilities for feeding 500 persons. With two sittings, the plant could feed almost 20,000 persons.

    They installed a most elaborate set-up for applying the rust proofing Bonderizing process. It is probable that this was the largest and most up-to-date installation in the world until recent years, though it was never used in either pre-war or wartime production of K.D.F.’s.

    The Big Day

    May 26, 1938 was a big day in Germany, for that was the day Hitler laid the corner stone of what is now the VW plant and formally dedicated the brand new town of Wolfsburg, Germany. In his speech at the ceremonies Hitler was reported to have said: "This car has been created for my people; it will serve them in their daily tasks as a means of transport and will bring them joy in their leisure.

    During Hitler’s dedication of the KDF plant, in Wolfsburg, Germany, This VW was one of several surrounding the speakers’ stand which can be seen in the rear. Wide World Photos.

    Our car will bear the name of your Strength-Through-Joy movement which has made this all possible. Your car will be known as the K.D.F., or Strength-Through-Joy Car. I am laying this corner stone in the name of all German people."

    The plant was soon completed, with the help of Italian laborers sent to Hitler’s aid by his fellow dictator, Benito Mussolini. By late 1939 much of the factory equipment was installed, and a few sedans had been produced for use by civilian government agencies.

    Shortly after war was declared in September of ! 939, Hermann Goering seized the K.D.F. plant to handle repairs and minor parts production for the German Air Force.

    The K.D.F. Goes to War

    World War II was under way many months before German military technicians began searching for a personnel transport vehicle for the same reasons that our War Department promoted design and production of the Willys Jeep.

    More than 80,000 Series 82 Volkswagens were built in Wolfsburg during World War II for use by German troops. In addition to this utilitarian model, a limited number of swimming Volkswagens had propellors and rudders in the rear to aid in fording streams and rivers in the march of Hitler's armies.

    Military models of the Volkswagen used a Zahnradfabrink positive locking differential to improve traction in snow or mud. When either side plate moved more rapidly than the other, the center slugs would lock and tie the wheels together to provide equal traction.

    In Germany many different designs from most German auto makers

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