The People's Car

[Grant White]

Now then,

As an ex-beetle owner and drive (a 72 1100, man what a car to learn to 
drive in) I was aghast when told of the Nazi connection(?) the version I 
heard even went so far to claim that the VW logo as pressed into the 
hubcaps would create the illusion of the swastika at a certain speed. 
Now, reluctant as I was at the time to drive with my head out the window 
watching the wheels, I never actually bothered to put the information to 
the test. It was a great little car though.

Anyoldhow, is Richard M. Zhlubb, the early seventies manager of the 
Orpheus theatre, powering to work in his Vdub a caricature of one Richard M 
Nixon, 
who at the approxiamate time of GR's final drafting say, was making 
rather Zhlubb like noises? (I pronounce Zlubb in the same way a  flat 
tyre sounds when continuing to drive on it, or something soft hitting a 
something hard.
Just wondering about that.

Grant

--                                                                       -
Grant White                        |
Multi-media & Special Collections  |
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On Fri, 29 Dec 1995 LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu wrote:

> 
>  Jeffrey send the following:
> ""1995 marks the fortieth anniversary of Volkswagen of America, Inc. ... The
> first Beetle arrived in the US in 1949 ... But, without someone to explain
> its idiosyncrasies and present its strengths, the odd insect-shaped car
> didn't make much of an impression in America. Just two Beetles were purchased
> in that first year, and only a few hundred in the next. By 1955, more and
> more Americans had begun to hear of the odd little Beetle."  (Museum  of VW
> History @www.volkswagen.com)"
> 
> 
> An interesting gloss here, in that the Web page glosses over connections to
> the Nazi regime.  I recall running across an ad in an old LIFE or SATURDAY
> EVENING POST from the war years (if not sooner), showing a little Beetle
> stuffed with Wehrmacht troops and decrying the state-controlled "People's
> Car" of the Germans, at the expense (of course) of the independent and
> properly capitalist American auto industry.  The gist of the article seemed
> to be that big cars were a mark of financial and moral superiority.
> 
> Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>