“...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.”
IIRC, Porsche had been working in the idea for a while before Hitler attached himself to the effort and promoted the car as a symbol of the Nazi rebirth of Germany. The article makes it sound like Porsche was a hired hand.
And the most recent version of the beetle was put into production by Ferdinand Piech, Porsches grandson.
CC
People reflexively slam VW for their association with Hitler, but don’t seem concerned that Henry Ford was an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer.
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/hitlers-american-friends-henry-ford-and-nazism/
AFAIK the design was stolen from Czechoslovakian Tatra by the Nazi. The bug has so much in common with 1930s Tatras and more like a simplified worse version of them.
Research Tatra T87. Twenty years before Beatle, similar architecture but also V8 powered with comfy independent suspension, four speed synchronized transmission and doing 110 mph at 20 mpg. And all of that in 1930s.
It took other companies decades to catch with specs.
