The Hyperlogos

Established May 30, 1937, Volkswagen reflected misunderstood artist and tyrant Adolf Hitler's dream of an affordable automobile for all good Germans and ushered in a new era in automobile design. Designed by Ferdinand Porsche and Auto Union chief engineer Erwin Komenda, the original prototypes had a rounded, snail-like shape and an air-cooled, four-cylinder boxer engine. But by 1939 only a handful of vehicles had been produced (including a birthday present for der Führer) and if the British army hadn't ordered 20,000 cars after the factory and its surrounding town were captured by Americans. After its revival in 1945 the town with the lovely name of KdF-Stadt was renamed Wolfsburg and the car to Volkswagen.

Over the next thirty years, Volkswagen introduced several additional models including the type 2 (truck, van, and camper), the Karmann Ghia, the Volkswagen Thing (based on the original armored car), the type 3 (squareback, fastback, and notchback) and finally the type 4, a later sedan/wagon (of 1968) which featured unibody construction and macpherson front suspension. Aside from its Lazarus act at the end of WWII, the pivotal moment for Volkswagen was its acquisition of Auto Union in 1964, and in 1969, NSU — which developed the first production automobile based on a rotary engine. This was a defining moment for Volkswagen because it provided them with water-cooled engine technology (air-cooled engines don't do well sitting in the traffic of the modern era) and with a whole new company which was united under the Audi marque.

To cut a long story short; Volkswagen today owns Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Rolls-Royce (although they can't use the marque, which is owned by BMW), Bugatti, Scania, and Lamborghini (via Audi.) They produce some of the most fuel-efficient production cars on the road today, specifically the TDI (turbo direct injection) series of vehicles. Of course, the USA gets boned as usual and you can get a TDI, or you can get a car with all wheel drive, but you can't get one with both. In general, German cars have taken a sharp downturn in quality in order to compete with the Japanese on price, and the results are not positive. In part due to this factor (which has more severely impacted BMW and Mercedes, from whom customers expect to purchase a quality automobile) and in part due to the homogenization of their product lines, there is today little difference between a Skoda, a Seat, a Volkswagen, or an Audi - although Lamborghini is still fairly autonomous. Then again, they've never been known for building a reliable machine either. The company turned things around substantially in 2006, returning much of their manufacturing to Germany (from Mexico and Brazil.)

One Volkswagen is much like another, and vehicles across various marques and product lines share parts and design heavily. There seems to be a lot in common even between a Rabbit and the pickup; both were available even in the eighties with small diesel engines which would run them down the highway at about 45 mpg. Unfortunately, it really is true that VW reliability has pretty much always been atrocious. The primary advantage of an early VW isn't reliability through simplicity; it only ends up being simple to repair, which you will do often. If you are comfortable with a wrench, you'll probably find it easy; an old beetle isn't much more complicated than a lawn mower, except in the number of cylinders.