However, the few cars that were built until the end of the war only went to a privileged few and not to the general population. During the war, only military vehicles were built. After the war, the factory, which was only a few kilometers from the Soviet occupation zone, was 85 percent destroyed. The British occupation forces initially did not know what to do with the Volkswagen project. Therefore, in the autumn of 1945, three engineers from Ford England visited the Wolfsburg factory 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 nevertheless came to a negative conclusion. The automotive industry’s tests on two vehicles that were brought to England at the end of 1946 also turned out negative. In the end, the work was offered to Henry Ford II for a symbolic price of just one dollar. But the company’s CEO rejected the project there too, as it received a negative evaluation from the British Rootes Group, with the words “the project wasn’t worth a penny”!

A GmbH was founded, which belonged to a trust company, which in turn was initially under the control of the occupying forces. This trust company later became part of the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany (West) and passed supervision on to the new federal state of Lower Saxony. Finally, Ivan Hirst, an officer in the British Control Commission and acting head of Volkswagenwerke GmbH, looked for a technical director for the plant, which he found in Heinz Nordhoff. Although an Allied expert commission had initially certified that the Beetle had no economic future (after the failed handover to Ford), the assembly line began running again in 1945 after it was handed over to Heinz Nordhoff’s company – initially relatively slowly. This situation was soon to change, however. Nordhoff made a success of the Volkswagen, and in the years that followed, production figures rose steadily. By the end of 1946, more than 10,000 cars had left the plant.

In order to meet the tastes of foreign customers, a more elaborate “export model” was introduced alongside the standard model in July 1949. The external appearance stood out from the standard models with its high-gloss paintwork and extensive chrome plating. From March 1953, an oval window without a vertical bar replaced the “pretzel window”. On August 5, 1955, the one millionth Beetle rolled off the production line and symbolized the economic upturn in the country. The “Made in Germany” label, originally intended as a stigma, became a seal of quality, and the “Beetle” was 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 production line in Emden/Osnabrck. After that, Beetle production was moved exclusively abroad. In 1985, imports of the Mexican Beetle to Germany ended.
The remake of the 1:87 model of this cult vehicle was long overdue. The original (from the economic miracle period) was re-measured 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. This means that we have a model that was created according to the latest guidelines and thus corresponds to the perfection of today’s miniatures.