Australia For Everyone

Ferdinand Porsche designed the prototypes of his `Volkswagen' (people's car) at the behest of the Nazi party in 1934-36, and a series of 30 pilot cars was constructed in 1937 by Daimler-Benz. In 1938, Adolf Hitler laid the corner-stone of the Volkswagen factory at Wolfsburg, but though the cars were known as the `KdF'-Wagen ("Kraft durch Freude": "Strength through Joy") and theoretically available on subscription, no cars were released to the public before the war. Various military VWs appeared, with a rear air-cooled flat-four engine of 1 l3lcc, this power unit being used on the post-war models which began to be produced by loyal employees in the bomb-flattened ruins of the Wolfsburg factory in 1945.

The British had been placed in charge of the mile-long factory, but didn't know what to do with it. There were also the thousands of freed prisoners of war, displaced persons and refugees streaming in from Soviet-controlled East Germany just eight kilometres (five miles) to the east. The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers used the plant as a military vehicle repair facility. But that was only a temporary measure, and the army requested that a British commission, headed by Lord Roots of the Hillman Motor Car Co., study the plant and the Volkswagen car, and make recommendations on their potential. The commission concluded that the Volkswagen was technically inferior, ugly and noisy, the type of car that "... will remain popular for two or three years, if that. To build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise." Regarding the plant, their advice was simple: Raze it.

In the meantime, the ex-prisoners and others scrounged around and found the hidden VW tooling. They set about cleaning up and restoring the plant. Pleased to see the people occupied, the British Army ignored the advice to destroy the factory and began trucking in coal from the Ruhr Valley. By the end of 1945 the enterprising Germans had produced several hundred Volkswagens. Like Lord Roots, Henry Ford II also dismissed the VW (nicknamed "Beetle") as having no commercial future, but the VW plant gradually got into full scale production. By March, 1953, it had built a half-million Beetles, and by August, 1955, a million.but i The Beetle went on to become the most successful car in motoring history, outselling even Henry Ford's Model T Ford. At Wolfsburg alone, 11,916,519 Beetles were built between 1945 and 1974, with millions more being built in other VW plants al1 over the world, especially in Brazil (where the Beetle was still in production in 1979) and in Australia, where the company launched an ambitious plan to build this model largely from locally sourced components, including the engine, during the boom years of the 1960s. Over the years, the Beetle acquired more powerful engines, of 1192cc (1954), 1285cc (1965), 1493cc (1966) and 1584cc (1970).

1954 Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle

The Beetle was officialy known as the Type 1 Volkswagen. The rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive car had excellent road-handling capabilities compared to everything around at the time, especially in winter. The fuel tank was mounted under the front bonnet. Early models did not have a fuel gauge but did have a reserve tank that was activated by a lever in the passenger compartment. The first Beetles were powered by a four cylinder 1.13 L engine that delivered 18.6 kW (25 hp) at 3000 rpm. The horizontal pistons had a bore of 75 mm (2.94 in) and a stroke of 64 mm (2.52 in) with a compression ratio of 5.8:1. The crankcase was a two-piece design with bolt-on finned cylinder heads. The centrally mounted camshaft was gear driven directly off the forged steel camshaft. The pushrods were housed in separate tubes connected to the aluminum alloy heads.

The engine was air cooled by an upright fan connected by a shaft to the generator, that was belt driven. The two-piece rear window stayed with the Beetle until 1953. While changes were made to almost everything else on the car, the outside shape of the Beetle remained unchanged over the years, even though every window had been enlarged and every panel had changed its shape at least once during the car's lifetime.

1973 Super Beetle

At least one Volkswagen Beetle was brought to Australia in late 1945 by the Australian military, being the first to land Down-under. It was auctioned as war surplus in 1946, and is known to survive (as little more than a rusty hulk) in the hands of a Sydney VW parts dealer. A 1946 Beetle that is on display in a car museum in Western Australia arrived in 1951 in the possession of a German migrant. The first official importation of Volkswagens were made by the Melbourne firm, Regent Motors, in October 1953. 31 cars were known to have been imported by the end of the year. By June 1954, the same company began to assemble Volkswagens from kits.

1954 production totalled 1385 cars, and an additional 360 Beetles and 300 Transporters were imported. Lanock Motors were appointed distributors for the state of New South Wales in 1954, and by 1957, this company, along with Regent Motors and other Australian shareholders, formed Volkswagen Australia in a 49% - 51% partnership with the Wolfsburg parent. The aim was full local manufacture. The first locally made panels were used in 1960, and full local manufacture at a new plant at Clayton in suburban Melbourne was achieved by 1962.

Full manufacture of Beetles at the Clayton plant only lasted six years. In 1968, in the face of serious inroads into Volkswagen's market share by the Morris Mini and an ever growing number of cheaper Japanese imports, Volkswagen ceased full manufacture of Beetles in Australia and reverted back to total kit assembly. The plant and property were written off or sold (Nissan took over the Clayton factory buildings), the body jigs ending up in Brazil and the exchange engine equipment in Malaysia. Nissans, Volvos and later, Mercedes Benz trucks, were assembled alongside Volkswagens from 1968 until 1976, when CKD assembly of all Volkswagens in Australia ceased. By this time 250,000 Volkswagens had been assembled and sold in Australia.