Typical models of the New Beetle

Whenever the generation who drove the Beetle heard this sound, they would be filled with emotion and evoke long-lasting longing in their memory.

This sound is as clear and easy to distinguish as the appearance of a beetle. From the late 1940s to the early 1980s, the unmistakable sound of the Beatles could be heard in the streets of Germany. Elsewhere in the world, the Beetle's air-cooled gasoline engine is the leading instrument in a noisy road symphony. In those years, the sound of the Beatles was always the background music of an increasingly prosperous life.

Therefore, Volkswagen's advertising company launched the classic advertisement "The whole world loves this from Germany" in the late 1960s. The Beetle has long since become Germany's "envoy" around the world: unmistakable, unmistakable and always lovable. It has been the most popular imported car in the United States for more than ten years. In 1967, it even roamed the small island nation of Nauru in the South Pacific. Although everyone knew that the Beetle used an air-cooled engine, Volkswagen still ran a full-page advertisement in the early winter of the mid-1960s: "Please don't forget to add antifreeze to your Volkswagen." It's not talking about the four-cylinder engine in the back, but the windshield water placed under the spare tire in the front. "Because we know how to use air to cool an engine, but we don't know how to use air to scrub a windshield." Whether Wolfsburg has researched using air to clean windshields, the advertising copy does not say. But even if it did, the Beetle's contemporaries wouldn't be surprised. Because at that time, the Beetle had already found the wonderful aphorism "Air does not freeze, air does not boil" in the German treasure house.

When Volkswagen adopted a water-cooled engine, it was like changing the design of the Beetle. It was unthinkable. Although the Beetle's design has long been considered conservative, even outdated. Volkswagen made some witty jokes in the ad, and it certainly got applause from those unrepentant Beetle fans. "In 1948, many people thought we should improve." This sentence was placed in an advertisement launched in 1965 with an early Beetle with a center frame on the rear window. This statement is also realistic, because Volkswagen has improved the total number of Beetle parts from 5008 to 5002 in more than ten years.

The classic appearance of the Beetle will never change. Another Volkswagen advertisement from the 1960s said, "Some shapes can't be improved." The picture showed an egg with a Beetle tail pattern on it. Exactly 15 years later (already in the Golf era), Volkswagen continues to use the sentimental slogan. When the last Beetle produced in Germany rolled off the production line in 1978, the concise "egg" theme was used again. This time the advertisement read "We will keep this appearance until the end." And what is even more "stubborn" is that "21 million Beetle users around the world think this appearance is good." What users think is good is also the smell of Beetle: if you take a deep breath in the Beetle, you will smell the smell of the machine heating up. Therefore, the Beetle's competitors promoted their advantages by proposing "heat without weird smells", but what these competitors did not know was that it was this warm air that increased the charm of the Beetle. It was generated in the heat exchanger and passed through the door. The small opening below blows slowly, and this hot air is like a good-smelling perfume, showing the unique personality of the Beetle.

Contemporaries of the Beetle all know that the Beetle’s always had a very mild hot air, which was still a major selling point when the Beetle began to write a history of success. It was an absolute luxury at the time, because other cars didn't have hot air and drivers wore thick coats and gloves while working behind the wheel in the winter, but those Beetle owners wore a warm sweater when driving in the winter. The Beetle brings a sense of comfort and security to car owners, and of course the next generation of car owners. Children of the Beetle's contemporaries can stay carefree in the luggage space behind the rear seats. The slow sound of the engine and Rudy Schulich's singing accompanied them as they drifted into sleep.

The Beatles generation grew up with the Beetles and also grew up in the Beetles. They rode in everything from the 1952 model with its oval rear window to the roomier 1957 model, and by the time the 1960 model was launched, they had moved from the back seat to the passenger seat (children are now strictly prohibited from sitting in it) here).

Volkswagen once asked in an advertisement in 1967, "Why do thousands of people use Beetles when they learn to drive every year?" Then they asked and answered themselves, "Because Beetles are easy to drive. Ask your driving school. Teacher, that’s how his driving school works.” Driving a Beetle makes you feel light and agile, not because of its speed, but because of its easy control.

Light steering, pedals and gear lever, direct response to driver commands - this is what it was like at the time, in the 1950s and 1960s, and it was not possible to do these things at that time. It was so easy in the mid-1970s, that is, after the golf era. The Beetle set the standard for sedans in its class at the time - just as the Golf would later.

These advantages are especially attractive to Americans who are used to competing with bulky cars like spaceships. Arthur Leighton, a journalist who later became a director of Volkswagen of America, once described the Beetle as "it jumped in and out of traffic, and it could slip into a parking space when someone was turning into it. On the snow It swooped away, and the air vents on the rear of the car seemed to be teasing the helplessness of the car behind."

The American consumer magazine Consumer Reports hit the mark on the impact of the Beetle as early as November 1952: "If you feel tired driving, a Volkswagen will refresh you." ". Two years later, Lawrence Brooks, the magazine's testing consultant, sang the Beetle's praises as "...one of the few...exciting cars that is truly a lot of fun to drive."

In November 1955, Leo Donovan, a reporter for the American magazine "Popular Mechanics", stared in surprise, "...This car is not big in stature or horsepower. But it always Demand exceeds supply, sales are booming, and there are no discounts or free trips to Paris. What is it about this car that is so incredible? It’s a Volkswagen like a Beetle." “No car has had the social impact of the Beetle,” Arthur Leighton wrote in his ode to the Beetle, “The Beetle.” “It has become part of the social ethos. It has its own myth, and people are Books were written about it, magazines were published, movies were made about it like a star... Hundreds of jokes were made featuring it... In comics it became a rebel against the upper class.” The Beetle wasn't flashy and extravagant, but it wasn't boring either. No car before or since it gave its owner as absolutely clear status as it did - if the owner took status seriously. The Beetle's greatest status symbol was its classlessness - both material and spiritual.

Almost 10 years later, in July 1971, the German car magazine "Car, Engine & Sport" analyzed that "almost every car can be distinguished based on displacement, horsepower and price. In reflecting the social status of the car owner, the Beetle created an image that was absolutely classless and anyone could drive it without worrying about outsiders prying into their personal circumstances..."

During this period. , this magazine from Stuttgart also made another judgment that "there will not be, and cannot be, a real successor to the Beetle", this is after Reinhard Sefter tested the Beetle in November 1969 'No one can build a car like this, not even Volkswagen'. Less than five years later, in May 1974, Volkswagen presented rebuttal evidence. The Beetle suddenly had a successor that included all of the Beetle's strengths without its flaws, creatively engineered by the Beetle's generation, and that was the Golf.