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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that ReBs the motor of history seven days

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Speaker 1: a week. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the long, strange journey of the v W Beatle,

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Speaker 1: a brand that overcame its bleak beginnings to become one

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Speaker 1: of the most popular cars of all time. The day

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Speaker 1: was February seventeen, nineteen seventy two. The fifteen million, seven

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Speaker 1: thousand and thirty four Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly

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Speaker 1: line in Germany, making it the most highly produced car

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Speaker 1: in the world. In claiming that top spot, the VW

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Speaker 1: Beetle beat out the Ford Motor Company's iconic Model T,

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Speaker 1: which had been in production for nineteen years from nineteen

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Speaker 1: o eight through ninety seven. When production ceased that year,

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Speaker 1: more than fifteen million Model T s had been built,

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Speaker 1: a record that would stand for forty five years. Ford's

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Speaker 1: Model T had a profound impact not just on the

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Speaker 1: burgeoning automotive industry, but on society itself. It was the

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Speaker 1: first car that was affordable and reliable enough for the

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Speaker 1: average person to buy one, breaking that crucial Barrier changed

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Speaker 1: public perception of the car from a rich person's luxury

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Speaker 1: or a mechanics hobby into a viable means of transportation

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Speaker 1: for just about anyone. The VW Beatle was actually created

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Speaker 1: with a similar purpose in mind to make car ownership

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Speaker 1: more accessible to the masses, and in particular to the

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Speaker 1: masses of nineteen thirties dur Many. You've probably heard that

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Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler was involved in the Beatles creation, and that's

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Speaker 1: mostly true. In nineteen thirty three, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany,

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Speaker 1: and his list of goals included building new roads and

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Speaker 1: making cars more affordable for German families. That task was

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Speaker 1: overseen by the Third Rice's Strength through Joy or Leisure division.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty four, the Austrian born engineer Ferdinand Porsche

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Speaker 1: was enlisted to help design the People's Car, or as

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Speaker 1: it was known in German, the Folkswagen. This was still

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Speaker 1: fourteen years before Porsche would launch his own brand of automobiles,

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Speaker 1: but at the time he had already been working on

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Speaker 1: designs for a small, affordable car. So it's true that

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Speaker 1: Hitler started the chain of events that led to the

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Speaker 1: VW Beetle, but the actual design of the car pre

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Speaker 1: dates his request. In fact, the finished product, known as

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Speaker 1: the Volkswagen Type one, was remarkably similar to the Tatra

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Speaker 1: T seven, a check car whose designer Porscha had worked

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Speaker 1: with years earlier. The designs were so similar that the

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Speaker 1: Tatra company later sued Porsche for patent infringement. Nothing ever

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Speaker 1: came of the lawsuit, though, because shortly after it was filed,

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Speaker 1: Hitler's Germany invaded Checklist Slovakia and put an end to

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Speaker 1: the T N seven. Construction on the Volkswagen factory began

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Speaker 1: in night, when Hitler himself placed the building's cornerstone. Full

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Speaker 1: scale vehicle production wouldn't begin there until after World War Two,

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Speaker 1: but the factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, did produce cars for

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Speaker 1: military use prior to the country's defeat. Conditions in the

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Speaker 1: factory were about what you'd expect for something run by Hitler.

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Speaker 1: Of all, production workers were enslaved foreign and Jewish men

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Speaker 1: and women. Following World War Two, the VW manufacturing plant

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Speaker 1: was seized by British forces. The initial plan was to

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Speaker 1: dismantle the equipment, ship it back to Britain and start

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Speaker 1: making the People's car there instead. However, no British car

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Speaker 1: manufacturer wanted to make Volkswagens. You might imagine that had

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Speaker 1: something to do with the design's connection to the Nazis,

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Speaker 1: But a commission of British car manufacturers inspected the Volkswagen

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Speaker 1: and their conclusion was that it was quote quite unattractive

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Speaker 1: to the average buyer, and that to build the car

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Speaker 1: commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise. In other words,

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Speaker 1: they thought the car was ugly and that no one

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Speaker 1: would buy it, an opinion that didn't age well. Since

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Speaker 1: England wanted nothing to do with Volkswagen, the company, factory

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Speaker 1: and car stayed put in Germany. In nineteen forty nine,

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Speaker 1: the car was introduced to the American market, where it

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Speaker 1: was met with the coldest of cold shoulders. How cold,

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Speaker 1: only two of the cars were sold in the whole

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Speaker 1: country that first year. Sales improved from there they kind

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Speaker 1: of had to, but they remained low throughout the nineteen fifties.

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Speaker 1: The car's roots in Nazi Germany made it a tough

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Speaker 1: sell in post war America, and its small size and

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Speaker 1: unusual curves didn't help. But then in nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: Volkswagen was able to turn things around with the help

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Speaker 1: of an advertising agency called Doyle Dane Burnbach or d

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Speaker 1: dB for short, copywriter Julian Kanig and others. A d

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Speaker 1: dB hit upon the idea of confronting the cars of

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Speaker 1: parent drawbacks head on and then spinning them as advantages

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Speaker 1: to consumers. For example, Canaan came up with the tagline

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Speaker 1: think Small, which was placed alongside a picture of the

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Speaker 1: diminutive car, which was made to look even smaller against

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Speaker 1: an all white background. Additional copy went on to explain

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Speaker 1: the benefits of a little car. They're easier to park,

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Speaker 1: they get much better fuel mileage, and they're less difficult

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Speaker 1: to push if they run out of gas. This playful

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Speaker 1: approach to the product made the ads and the car

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Speaker 1: stand out from the competition. Over the next decade, sales

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Speaker 1: increased exponentially, with the VW Type one eventually becoming the

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Speaker 1: number one auto import in the United States. Yearly sales

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Speaker 1: rose from a dismal two nine to five hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy thousand in nine seventy. Along the way, the car

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Speaker 1: picked up its famous insect inspired nickname when the public

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Speaker 1: dubbed it the Beatle on account of its rounded shape.

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Speaker 1: Anything that distanced the car from its problematic roots, was

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Speaker 1: just fine with Volkswagen, so the company later adopted the

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Speaker 1: Beatle name itself in the late nineteen sixties, but that

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Speaker 1: didn't stop other countries from giving the car their own

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Speaker 1: animal nicknames, including the Fleet, the Mouse, the Frog, the Ladybug,

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Speaker 1: and the Turtle. Now embraced by the counterculture of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, including surfers and hippies alike, the car shed

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Speaker 1: its dark history and became something downright lovable. It's distinctive

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Speaker 1: design has since been associated with pop culture legends like

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Speaker 1: Herbie the love Bug, the Transformers, and the Beatles. No relation,

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Speaker 1: but arguably the VW Beetle LoveFest reached its peak on

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Speaker 1: February seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, when the car officially overtook

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Speaker 1: the Model T as the best selling car in the world.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy three, total production had reached more than

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Speaker 1: sixteen million. Years later, the Beatle became the first car

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Speaker 1: to sell twenty million units, and by the time it

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Speaker 1: ceased production for a third time, in more than twenty

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Speaker 1: one and a half million VW Beatles had been produced.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, the Beatle itself was overtaken as the

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Speaker 1: global best seller in the late nineteen nineties. The current

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Speaker 1: reigning champ is the Toyota Corolla, which has sold over

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Speaker 1: fifty million units as of twenty two. However, some people

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Speaker 1: would say that record should come with a caveat. There

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Speaker 1: have been countless redesigns of the Corolla over the years,

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Speaker 1: all of which could be viewed as distinct car designs

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Speaker 1: that just happened to share the same name. That's not

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Speaker 1: true of the VW Beatle, though, which was produced largely

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Speaker 1: unchanged for eight decades. So while it's technically no longer

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Speaker 1: the best selling car brand of all time, you could

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Speaker 1: make the case for it as the world's best selling

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Speaker 1: car design, you know, if it really means that much

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Speaker 1: to you. Of course, there's always the chance the Beatle

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Speaker 1: could go back into productions someday and even potentially take

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Speaker 1: back its top spot from the Corolla. But as things

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Speaker 1: stand now, the last VW Beetle, a denim blue coupe,

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Speaker 1: was produced at Volkswagen's assembly plant in Mexico on July nine.

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Speaker 1: It was Beatle number twenty one million, five hundred twenty

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Speaker 1: nine thousand, four hundred and sixty four. Its assembly was

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Speaker 1: celebrated by an on site Mariachi band, and it's now

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Speaker 1: on display at the company's Auto museum right there in

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Speaker 1: the city of Quebla. It's unclear if the VW. Beetle

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Speaker 1: has enough gas in its tank for yet another comeback.

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Speaker 1: But if the car could survive being linked to one

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Speaker 1: of the most despised people in human history, not to

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Speaker 1: mention Austin Powers, I wouldn't count it out just yet.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Louisier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about car history today than you did yesterday. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to keep up with the show, you can

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d

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Speaker 1: I HC Show and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: you can send them my way at this day at

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Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for

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Speaker 1: producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another Day in History class.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows. And it's now on display at the company's

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Speaker 1: Auto museum right there in the city of Puebla. It's

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Speaker 1: unclear if the VW beatle