Are you a lover of speed? Do you know your wonders-on-wheels? How about the Volkswagen? Well, let us find out. Based in Germany, the Volkswagen shortened VW is a carmaker established on 28th of May, 1937 by the German Labour Front known as Deutsche Arbeitsfront with her headquarters in Berlin, Germany. Unknown to many, “Volks” means people and the prefix applies to other products including cars and electronics.
Upon creation of the company in 1937, there was a rebranding that led to a change of name in 1938 to her present name the Volkswagenwerk GmbH. This rebranding followed suit with numerous events that launched the company to global relevance. First of such events was hiring of a brilliant mind in person of Erwin Komenda, a car union chief designer. The Komenda led team designed a prototype which till date is recognized as the Beetle. Astonishingly, this car was different as it was the first of its kind because it embodied an engineering piece called the wind tunnel which the Germans incorporated in aircraft designs.
In retrospect, the motivation behind the creation of the Volkswagenwerk GmbH will be incomplete without a quick glance at the evolution in the auto industry. Obviously, ownership of cars was almost impossible as about one in fifty individuals had access to one- it was a luxury reserved for the very elite among the elite. This situation led to a revolution in the auto-industry ushering in the “people’s car” project; a programme aimed at making ownership of cars possible for many and deservedly Adolf Hitler was at the forefront of the campaign.
With original logos containing cogwheel and swastika wings, the company continues to evolve, especially from the “beetle-styled” era to a more recent technological inclined age with numerous product designs such as squareback, Polo, Scirocco, Jetta, Golf Cabriole, Caddy pick-up among others spanning many generations even to the seventh with numerous sequels and improvements.
Without doubting efficiency of the brand, the perfect German-machine remains one of the best with various product designs gulping in awards and endorsements like the fourth most influential car of the 20th century in 1999, Green car award of the year in 2009, car of the century competition- for Volkswagen “Type 1 Beetle”; as well as 1992, 2010 and 2013 European car of the year for Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Polo and Volkswagen Golf respectively. Also, the company is a five time beneficiary of US Motor Trend Car of the Year award with Volkswagen GTI, New Beetle, Touareg, Passat and Golf in the year 1985, 1999, 2004, 2012 and 2015 respectively.
Despite the successful growth and expansion of business operations with many factories for manufacturing and assembling in many parts of the world, the Volkswagenwerk GmbH have had to deal with scandals and public complains such as the slave labor scandal, product recall and fraud among others; these issues affected her corporate structure to the roots.
Have you ever thought you had a deep prior knowledge of Volkswagenwerk GmbH that is this rich? Then this volkswagen quiz is yours, join the quiz ride.
