1:18 Volkswagen 1200 – 1983 – Yellow

Description

Volkswagen 1200 – 1983 – Yellow – (150057106):

The Volkswagen Type 1 is arguably the most recognisable and beloved car across the entire world, but of course, it goes by more famous nicknames such as the Beetle and the Bug. Volkswagen is a German word, and it translates to the ‘People’s Car’ – folk’s wagon.

It was designed by Dr Ferdinand Porsche in 1938, and was produced until 2003. With over 21,500,000 Beetles produced, the car is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made. The concept of a ‘people’s car’ actually stems from Nazi Germany. Its functional objectives were formulated by none other than Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany. He wanted a cheap, simple and easy-to-mass-produce vehicle for the country’s newly installed network of roads, the Reichsautobahn.

Dr Ferdinand Porsche was the lead designer, but the credit for the first ever conception goes to Bela Barenyi of Mercedes-Benz in 1925. Regardless of being designed in the 1930s, due solely to World War II, civilian Beetles only started getting produced to a significant degree by the end of the 1940s. Subsequently, the car was internally designated as the Volkswagen Type 1, and later models such as the 1200 were born.

After World War II, the factory was captured by the British army, and was subsequently reopened by British Army office Major Ivan Hirst. He first had to disarm an unexploded bomb, and had that have gone off, the Beetle would have died there and then. With the knowledge that Germany needed jobs, and the British military needed vehicles, Hirst persuaded his superiors to order 20,000 cars. By March 1946, the factory was producing a thousand cars per month.

The car was designed to be quite literally as basic as possible when it came to the mechanics. It had an air-cooled 25 horsepower 995 cc engine, with a built-in oil cooler, and it also had a flat-four engine configuration. The suspension used compact torsion bars, rather than coils or leaf springs. Furthermore, according to an advertisement launched in 1972, the Beetle was nearly completely airtight, and would actually float for a brief period.

With all its intricacies and little details perfectly captured, the model is a beautiful replica of the nigh-immortal lifespan of the Beetle. Its bright yellow paint allows the car to be bold and stand out, and its world-renowned bodywork is discernible pretty much anywhere and everywhere.