Busch 52904, VW Beetle with pretzel window, gray standard

VW Beetle with pretzel window, gray StandardIt runs and runs and runs... For over 60 years, the Beetle has been on roads all over the world. Its history begins in 1931, when Ferdinand Porsche's design office had already developed a streamlined sedan. After neither Zündapp nor NSU could decide to go into production, Porsche was commissioned to develop a "Volkswagen". Mercedes was commissioned to build a first test series of 30 pieces. Only many years later did it become known that Porsche was not the only spiritual father of the Beetle, because as early as 1925 Béla Barényi was already working on a hunchbacked car with an air-cooled boxer engine installed in the rear. Hans Ledwinka also constructed a very similar prototype for the Czech Tatra works - both authorships were only recognized many years later and compensated with high compensation from VW.In view of the positive evaluation of the Beetle, the government at the time decided to set up a Volkswagen plant and so the origin of the city of Wolfsburg actually goes back to the car manufacturer VW, which was founded in 1938. At first there were only a few small villages in the more agricultural area in eastern Lower Saxony. With the founding of the plant, the town – town of the KdF-Wagens (Strength through Joy) near Fallersleben – soon grew to 100,000 inhabitants, and anyone who hears Wolfsburg today automatically thinks of Volkswagen.However, the few cars that were built by the end of the war only went to a privileged few and not to the general public. During the war only military vehicles were built. After the war, the plant, which was only a few kilometers from the Soviet occupation zone, was 85 percent destroyed. At first, the British crew did not know what to do with the Volkswagen project. Therefore, in the fall of 1945, three engineers from Ford England first visited the plant in Wolfsburg and drove a VW on a road riddled with potholes. Despite the praise of military compatriots, who praised the Volkswagen as a wonderful vehicle, they still came to a negative verdict. Tests carried out by the automotive industry on two vehicles brought to England at the end of 1946 were also negative. In the end, the work was finally offered to Henry Ford II for a symbolic price of only one dollar. But even there, the head of the group rejected the project because it received a negative rating from the British Rootes Group with the words »the project would not be worth a penny«!So a limited liability company was founded, which belonged to a trust company, which in turn was initially subordinate to the occupying power. This trust company was later transferred to the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany (West) and passed on supervision to the new federal state of Lower Saxony. Finally, Ivan Hirst, officer of the British control commission and acting manager of Volkswagenwerke GmbH, was looking for a technical manager for the plant, whom he found in Heinz Nordhoff. Although a commission of experts from the Allies (after the failed transfer to Ford) had initially not certified the economic future of the Beetle, the assembly line started running again after it was handed over to the Heinz Nordhoff company in 1945 - relatively slowly at first. However, this situation was soon to change. Nordhoff made a success of the Volkswagen, and in the years that followed production figures continued to soar. At the end of 1946, more than 10,000 cars left the factory.In July 1949, in addition to the standard model, a more elaborate "export model" was presented to meet the tastes of foreign customers. The exterior appearance stood out from the standard models with a high-gloss finish and rich chrome plating. From March 1953, an oval window without a vertical bar replaced the "pretzel window". On August 5, 1955, the millionth Beetle rolled off the assembly line and symbolized the country's economic upswing. Originally intended as a stigma, "Made in Germany" became a seal of quality, and the "Beetle" became a huge success, especially in the United States.Production peaked on February 17, 1972. With 15,007,034 vehicles produced, the Beetle was the new “world champion” and thus became the most successful car, ahead of the previous record holder, the Ford T. In January 1978, the last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany rolled off the assembly line in Emden/Osnabrück. After that, Beetle production was exclusively relocated abroad. In 1985 the import of the Mexico Beetle to Germany ended.The 1:87 model remake of this iconic vehicle was long overdue. The model (from the time of the economic miracle) was remeasured using a complex laser process in order to be able to reproduce the rather difficult body shape exactly in miniature. Also noteworthy are the bright, elegant headlights, which were manufactured according to the latest standards and have the finest chrome-plated headlight rings.