VW Beetle - The Car of the 20th Century

VW Beetle - The Car of the 20th Century PDF Author: Richard Copping
Publisher: David and Charles
ISBN: 1845847326
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
The Beetle’s full story, from concept in pre-war Germany through 55 years of production & 22-million sales around the world. Colour features on 21 milestone models. Includes many sidebars & panels detailing Beetle facts, figures, feats, advertising, & more. The complete book of the Beetle.

VW Beetle - The Car of the 20th Century

VW Beetle - The Car of the 20th Century PDF Author: Richard Copping
Publisher: David and Charles
ISBN: 1845847326
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Beetle’s full story, from concept in pre-war Germany through 55 years of production & 22-million sales around the world. Colour features on 21 milestone models. Includes many sidebars & panels detailing Beetle facts, figures, feats, advertising, & more. The complete book of the Beetle.

The People’s Car

The People’s Car PDF Author: Bernhard Rieger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674075757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
At the Berlin Auto Show in 1938, Adolf Hitler presented the prototype for a small, oddly shaped, inexpensive family car that all good Aryans could enjoy. Decades later, that automobile—the Volkswagen Beetle—was one of the most beloved in the world. Bernhard Rieger examines culture and technology, politics and economics, and industrial design and advertising genius to reveal how a car commissioned by Hitler and designed by Ferdinand Porsche became an exceptional global commodity on a par with Coca-Cola. Beyond its quality and low cost, the Beetle’s success hinged on its uncanny ability to capture the imaginations of people across nations and cultures. In West Germany, it came to stand for the postwar “economic miracle” and helped propel Europe into the age of mass motorization. In the United States, it was embraced in the suburbs, and then prized by the hippie counterculture as an antidote to suburban conformity. As its popularity waned in the First World, the Beetle crawled across Mexico and Latin America, where it symbolized a sturdy toughness necessary to thrive amid economic instability. Drawing from a wealth of sources in multiple languages, The People’s Car presents an international cast of characters—executives and engineers, journalists and advertisers, assembly line workers and car collectors, and everyday drivers—who made the Beetle into a global icon. The Beetle’s improbable story as a failed prestige project of the Third Reich which became a world-renowned brand illuminates the multiple origins, creative adaptations, and persisting inequalities that characterized twentieth-century globalization.

Thinking Small

Thinking Small PDF Author: Andrea Hiott
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345521447
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Sometimes achieving big things requires the ability to think small. This simple concept was the driving force that propelled the Volkswagen Beetle to become an avatar of American-style freedom, a household brand, and a global icon. The VW Bug inspired the ad men of Madison Avenue, beguiled Woodstock Nation, and has recently been re-imagined for the hipster generation. And while today it is surely one of the most recognizable cars in the world, few of us know the compelling details of this car’s story. In Thinking Small, journalist and cultural historian Andrea Hiott retraces the improbable journey of this little car that changed the world. Andrea Hiott’s wide-ranging narrative stretches from the factory floors of Weimar Germany to the executive suites of today’s automotive innovators, showing how a succession of artists and engineers shepherded the Beetle to market through periods of privation and war, reconstruction and recovery. Henry Ford’s Model T may have revolutionized the American auto industry, but for years Europe remained a place where only the elite drove cars. That all changed with the advent of the Volkswagen, the product of a Nazi initiative to bring driving to the masses. But Hitler’s concept of “the people’s car” would soon take on new meaning. As Germany rebuilt from the rubble of World War II, a whole generation succumbed to the charms of the world’s most huggable automobile. Indeed, the story of the Volkswagen is a story about people, and Hiott introduces us to the men who believed in it, built it, and sold it: Ferdinand Porsche, the visionary Austrian automobile designer whose futuristic dream of an affordable family vehicle was fatally compromised by his patron Adolf Hitler’s monomaniacal drive toward war; Heinrich Nordhoff, the forward-thinking German industrialist whose management innovations made mass production of the Beetle a reality; and Bill Bernbach, the Jewish American advertising executive whose team of Madison Avenue mavericks dreamed up the legendary ad campaign that transformed the quintessential German compact into an outsize worldwide phenomenon. Thinking Small is the remarkable story of an automobile and an idea. Hatched in an age of darkness, the Beetle emerged into the light of a new era as a symbol of individuality and personal mobility—a triumph not of the will but of the imagination.

VW Beetle Specification Guide 1949-1967

VW Beetle Specification Guide 1949-1967 PDF Author: Richard Copping
Publisher: The Crowood Press
ISBN: 1785004905
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The VW Beetle is one of the best-loved of all classic cars, with many thousands preserved across the world, many in regular use. Over the years countless changes were introduced, together making a mid sixties Beetle, for instance, very different from one built in the mid-50s, or mid-70s, despite the obvious similarities. With the aid of hundreds of full colour photographs this new edition in paperback documents all the Beetle's specification changes and model differences during the classic period 1949-67, making it possible to determine the original specification and fittings of any Beetle from this period.Uses the same format as for the highly successful VW Transporter spec guides. Aimed at early-Beetle owners and enthusiasts. Superbly illustrated with 300 colour photographs. New edition in paperback for 2018.

Twenty Cars that Defined the 20th Century

Twenty Cars that Defined the 20th Century PDF Author: James Morrison
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
ISBN: 1035803879
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
On the 29 June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo triggering events leading to the outbreak of the First World War. Less well known is that the car he was in was a borrowed Graf + Stift Double Phaeton, that the route was published in advance, and the decision to lower the hood was only taken at the last minute. As with the other events in this book, the car played a central role, yet its history is largely unknown. These cars not only had their own stories in terms of design, ownership, and the role they played but they are also a way of telling the story of the events themselves – they are literally a vehicle for history. In this book James Morrison takes 20 cars involved in twenty key 20th century world events and examines their involvement and history to provide a new angle and fascinating insights.

Volkswagen Beetles and Buses

Volkswagen Beetles and Buses PDF Author: Russell Hayes
Publisher: Motorbooks
ISBN: 0760367663
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
This illustrated history celebrates the 75th and 70th anniversaries of Volkswagen's two most iconic vehicles, from the first Beetles spearheaded by Ferdinand Porsche in the 1940s to the buses that became synonymous with a generation. Volkswagen is one of the most beloved brands in motoring history, thanks largely to two instantly recognizable vehicles: the Beetle (a.k.a. Bug) and the Bus. More than 23 million VW Beetles have buzzed into the world since 1945, while the VW Bus presaged the minivan by thirty-plus years. Volkswagen: Beetles and Buses examines and celebrates all aspects of the vehicles and the many cultural associations that have swirled around them for more than seven decades. The diminutive rear-engined and easily mass-produced Beetle became the most popular imported car in America during the 1960s. Its success was due to its familiar face, its wildly clever ad campaigns, and the sheer numbers produced. The equally compact yet spacious Bus (a.k.a. Kombi, Microbus, Type 2, Transporter, and simply “van”) has won millions of fans around the world with its practicality, simplicity, and design. In this beautifully illustrated and authoritatively written celebration, author Russell Hayes looks back at the vehicles while focusing on the classic air-cooled VWs that ran into the late 1970s. Along the way, readers witness the Beetle and Bus at work and at play and learn about vehicle development and growing roles in popular culture, including star appearances in films like The Love Bug, Little Miss Sunshine, Footloose, Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as well as television shows like Lost and Once Upon a Time and on the covers of the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album. The story is brought up to date with coverage of the New Beetle and plans for the VW Buzz, a modern electric version of the iconic Microbus due in 2022. Volkswagen: Beetles and Buses deserves a place in the motoring libraries of VW owners, automotive enthusiasts, and those simply interested in pop culture. It's the ultimate illustrated history of these beloved vehicles.

Rootes Cars of the 1950s, 1960s & 1970s – Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam & Talbot

Rootes Cars of the 1950s, 1960s & 1970s – Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam & Talbot PDF Author: David Rowe
Publisher: David and Charles
ISBN: 1787117979
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
The only full-colour comprehensive guide to all Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam, Singer & Talbot cars and vans, from 1950 until the end of production in the 1970s. With model-by-model descriptions and detailed technical information, this is an invaluable Rootes resource.

The book of the Volkswagen Type 3

The book of the Volkswagen Type 3 PDF Author: Simon Glen
Publisher: David and Charles
ISBN: 1787118169
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This book tells the definitive international story of the Volkswagen Type 3. Simon Glen writes from first-hand experience, having owned seven Type 3s - five Variants, a 1500 Notchback and a 1500S Karmann·Ghia - which have been driven through Africa, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Crap Cars

Crap Cars PDF Author: Richard Porter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1582346380
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
Offers a window into the vanity and silliness of almost every decade as expressed by the ultimate status symbol of the car, showcasing the cheapest, tackiest, and most mechanically inept vehicles built from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Voiture Minimum

Voiture Minimum PDF Author: Antonio Amado
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262015366
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
A colorful account of Le Corbusier's love affair with the automobile, his vision of the ideal vehicle, and his tireless promotion of a design that industry never embraced. Le Corbusier, who famously called a house “a machine for living,” was fascinated—even obsessed—by another kind of machine, the automobile. His writings were strewn with references to autos: “If houses were built industrially, mass-produced like chassis, an aesthetic would be formed with surprising precision,” he wrote in Toward an Architecture (1923). In his “white phase” of the twenties and thirties, he insisted that his buildings photographed with a modern automobile in the foreground. Le Corbusier moved beyond the theoretical in 1936, entering (with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret) an automobile design competition, submitting plans for “a minimalist vehicle for maximum functionality,” the Voiture Minimum. Despite Le Corbusier's energetic promotion of his design to several important automakers, the Voiture Minimum was never mass-produced. This book is the first to tell the full and true story of Le Corbusier's adventure in automobile design. Architect Antonio Amado describes the project in detail, linking it to Le Corbusier's architectural work, to Modernist utopian urban visions, and to the automobile design projects of other architects including Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright. He provides abundant images, including many pages of Le Corbusier's sketches and plans for the Voiture Minimum, and reprints Le Corbusier's letters seeking a manufacturer. Le Corbusier's design is often said to have been the inspiration for Volkswagen's enduringly popular Beetle; the architect himself implied as much, claiming that his design for the 1936 competition originated in 1928, before the Beetle. Amado Lorenzo, after extensive examination of archival and source materials, disproves this; the influence may have gone the other way. Although many critics considered the Voiture Minimum a footnote in Le Corbusier's career, Le Corbusier did not. This book, lavishly illustrated and exhaustively documented, restores Le Corbusier's automobile to the main text.