Volkswagen's road to success

Volkswagen is a highly respected brand, both in the UK and across the world, and its high sales figures are representative of this. These reveal that it is the fourth largest car manufacturer globally, selling hundreds of thousands of units each year. And with much-loved models like the Golf, Polo and Beetle, it isn't surprising that VW is reaching the highest levels of success.

However, things didn't always look so rosy for Volkswagen. The company has been on a long journey to bring it to this point, experiencing some very notable ups and downs. duck2water Car Insurance Services investigates how VW has got to where it has today and takes a look at some of the notable events which have happened along the way.

A history of Volkswagen
Volkswagen's beginnings lie in pre-WW2 Germany, where a man named Fernando Porsche (yep, that Porsche) developed a prototype "people's car" along with one of the most well-known designers of the day. And so the Volkswagen Beetle was born, although for quite some time it was known under a number of different names, including the KdF-Wagen and the Type 1.

The end of WW2 saw the Volkswagen factory handed over to the British, who had to sort out some major structural problems with the building - such as the unexploded bomb that had landed in the middle of the precious machinery. Fortunately, this was gently removed without causing any further damage to the factory.

The British general who took charge of the factory soon had it up and running and, after persuading the UK military to place a 20,000 unit order, saw the place turning out 1,000 VW Beetles a month by 1946. The car's success in Europe was mirrored several years later in the US, where the one million unit mark was passed in 1955.

After designing a couple of models which didn't catch on to the same extent as the Beetle, Volkswagen's 1964 move to acquire Audi turned out to be one of its best. The VW Polo, one of the longest-running models from this manufacturer, was basically a rebadged version of the Audi 50, and it proved to be quite successful. The Passat, another of Volkswagen's famous models, was also based on an Audi when it was launched in 1973.

The introduction of the Polo and the Passat were just the start of VW's road to success. It was when production at the main German factory switched from the Beetle to the Golf in 1974 that proved to be Volkswagen's best move. Known in America as the Rabbit, the Golf has been the foundation of VW's success, enjoying popularity across the world, year after year.

In the early 1990s, VW expanded its ownership group to include both SEAT and Skoda. The addition of these companies has taken some time to come to fruition, but Skoda's reputation has been much improved by inclusion in the Volkswagen Group.

The past decade has been marked by a flurry of new models from VW, including the New Beetle, in 1996, the Lupo and the Bora in 1999, the Touareg, the Phaeton and the Touran in 2004, and the Jetta, Fox and Eos in 2006. Whilst none of these could match the spectacular success of the Golf, they have all proven to be valuable members of the VW range.

The other events which have stood out in the last ten years for Volkswagen are some of the Golf's incredible achievements. 1990 saw the one millionth Golf roll off the production line, whilst 2002 marked an important point in this model's history; the number of Golfs produced finally outnumbered the number of Beetles. The Golf's success has carried on well into the 21st century, with 2007 seeing the Golf pass the 25 million mark.

Cheap Volkswagen car insurance
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