Ferdinand Porsche was the founder of Volkswagen.
It is said that he was indeed a technical genius and was employed by a great number of companies eg Austro-Daimler, Mercedes, Daimler-Benz to name but a few.
In 1930 he opened his own design company. In 1931 he asked his team of staff to start designing a car with a water cooled 3 cylinder engine. This should have independent suspension and be able to accommodate 4 adults. The main aim was to keep the expenditure as low as possible to make it affordable to the masses.
In 1932 he made Zundapp a partner. Originally 3 prototypes were produced using his original design which was equipped with a new engine. Unfortunately the engine turned out to have a severe cooling problem and melted after ten minutes of running. Zundapp decided to opt out of the project.
NSU a motor cycle manufacturer decided to join forces and a new cooled 4 cylinder engine was built. The engine was placed at the back to avoid the traditional transmission with a separate gear box, drive shaft and rear axle. Unfortunately due to the economical climate in Germany at the time NSU decided to withdraw and Porche was again on his own.
In 1933 at the Berlin Motor Show Adolf Hitler announced his plan to produce a smaller car for the people of Germany. Porche and Hitler were to join forces and a contract was signed in 1934. The prototypes were intended to be built by RDA, which was the German Auto Manufacturers Association. RDA were soon to realise that this project had a chance to be successful and this they certainly did not want. They purposely delayed the project which made Porsche miss the deadline and thus made him lose his contract. However Hitler realised this and placed the entire project under government supervision. The three prototypes were delivered in October 1936.
To this day the volkswagen has remained almost identical in design. It has a reputation for being a highly reliable car and indeed Volkswagen van leasing is a very popular choice as they have such a solid history behind them.
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