Volkswagen
Volkswagen, which is also referred to simply as VW, is the German automobile manufacturer.
World headquarters are located in Wolfsburg Germany, which is the original manufacturing city for the VW cars. Incidentally, the ciy was built specifically for the purpose of manufacturing the Volkswagen automobile.
The German first division football (soccer) team in Wolfsburg, which won the Bundesliga title in 2009 with genious coach Felix Magath at the helm, is appropriately sponsered by Volkswagen. By the way, Magath has since moved on to Schalke, which made a heroic run for the league crown in 2010 only to fall just short behind power house Bayern Munich.
Volkswagen is part of the Volkswagen Group, which also owns Lamborghini, Porsche, Bently, Audi, Bugatti, Scania, Skoda and Seat.
The term Volkswagen means ‘the people’s car’ in the German language, and was developed originally in 1937 as an affordable option for the average German citizen, who could not afford any of the other cars on the market as they were the exclusive domain of the wealthy.
The car was created by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche under initiative of Adolf Hitler, who wanted to create an inexpensive car for the masses.
In 1949, Volkswagens came to the United States. Three years later they were introduced in Canada, where they immediately became big hits.
After clever marketing, the cars began to soar in sales in the States, selling over 16 million units by 1973.
The cars became known on the street as the Beetle or the Bug, but this terminology was never used officially by the manufacturer until 1998 when the New Beetle was introduced.
