Back in the Day: Europe produces its last VW Beetle

January 19, 1978 The last Volkswagen Beetle to be made in Europe rolls off the production line at the group’s Emden plant in Germany. The Beetle would continue to be made in Mexico until 2003, giving it a record for the longest-running production of a particular model of car. With over 21 million models made, it is also the most manufactured. Its origins go back to 1933 when Adolf Hitler commissioned a German car for two adults and three children that would cost no more than 1,000 Reichsmarks (around 4,000 euros). Ferdinand Porsche was the man charged with developing what the car-maker would call the ‘car for everybody’. Production started in 1938 in Wolfsburg but was interrupted by World War II. After the war the production site was offered to both British and American car manufacturers including Ford, but they were not interested in what they saw as an unattractive car that would not sell well. They were proven wrong and by 1972, the Beetle had outsold the Ford Model T. Its popularity declined during the course of the 1970s and Volkswagen decided to stop making the Beetle in Europe to concentrate on its new car, the Golf.

Also on January 19: Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, a.k.a the Butcher of Lyon, is arrested in Bolivia (1983); the Czech Republic and Slovakia join the UN (1993); assassination of Turkish journalist Hrant Dink (2007).

Born on January 19: Edgar Allan Poe (1809), Paul Cézanne (1839), Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (1920), Janis Joplin (1943), Maria Jepsen (1945), Dolly Parton (1946), Stefan Edberg (1966), Jenson Button (1980).

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