The few cars built until the end of the war, however, only went to a privileged few, not to the general public. During the war, exclusively military vehicles were built. After the war, the factory, located just a few kilometers from the Soviet occupation zone, was 85 percent destroyed. The British occupation forces initially didn’t know what to do with the Volkswagen project. Therefore, in the fall 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 fellow soldiers who hailed the Volkswagen as a wonderful vehicle, they nevertheless came to a negative conclusion. The automotive industry’s tests on two vehicles brought to England at the end of 1946 also proved negative. In the end, the work was offered to Henry Ford II for a symbolic price of just one dollar. But even then, the company’s CEO rejected the project, as it received a negative review from the British Rootes Group, stating that “the project wouldn’t be worth a penny!”

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

To appeal to the tastes of foreign customers, a more elaborate “export model” was introduced alongside the standard model in July 1949. Its exterior design stood out from the standard models with its high-gloss paint finish and extensive chrome plating. Starting in March 1953, an oval window without a vertical bar replaced the “pretzel window.” On August 5, 1955, the one-millionth Beetle rolled off the assembly line, symbolizing the country’s economic upswing. “Made in Germany,” originally intended as a stigma, 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,” becoming the most successful car, ahead of the previous record holder, the Ford T. In January 1978, the last German-made Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Emden/Osnabrck. After that, Beetle production was relocated exclusively abroad. In 1985, imports of the Mexican Beetle to Germany ended.
The remake of the 1:87 scale model of this iconic vehicle was long overdue. Therefore, the original (from the German economic miracle) was re-measured using a complex laser process in order to accurately recreate the rather complex body shape in miniature. Also noteworthy are the bright, elegant headlights, manufactured according to the latest standards and featuring the finest chrome-plated headlight rings. Thus, we have a model that was created according to the latest guidelines and thus corresponds to the perfection of today’s miniatures.