How many people can you fit in a Volkswagen Beetle, the people's car? The current world record is 20. Designed by Porsche, commissioned by Hitler, marketed by a Jewish agency, and adopted by the Hippies. The crazy story of the success of the Beetle and marketing used in the US market.

Dave Young:

Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those.

[Royal Plumbing Ad]

Dave Young:

Stephen, when I was a kid there were all kinds of people, they were doing contests like see how many people you can cram into a phone booth, and another one was how many people can you cram into a Volkswagen Beetle? This is back in the sixties and seventies.

Stephen Semple:

It was like the clown car.

Dave Young:

Exactly, it was like, how many high school kids can we cram into this tiny little car? And then there were people that would disassemble them and put them back together inside the high school, or upon the roof.

Stephen Semple:

That's right.

Dave Young:

So when you said what you said today you wanted to talk about the story of Volkswagen I'm like cool, that little car has so many stories.

Stephen Semple:

And here's the crazy thing about Volkswagen, about the Beetle, This was a car that was dreamt up by Adolf Hitler.

Dave Young:

Oh God, yeah.

Stephen Semple:

That was promoted by a Jewish advertising agency and adapted by hippies.

Dave Young:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

How was that even possible? It's a crazy story. And the other thing that's amazing about the Beetle, the Beetle did something that had never been done before, and hasn't been repeated again since, is that it beat the Model T Ford as the most produced car ever. And we think about Volkswagen as this big multinational business, but we're going to go right back to the early days, because the story of the Beetle, I mean a movie should be made.

Dave Young:

In German, it's people's car, people's wagon, right? That's volks is-

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, it's the people's car.

Dave Young:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Exactly right, exactly right. But the whole idea started before World War II, and we're going to go really back into those days, even before it was a car. When you think about this being an icon of the counter culture, it's almost unbelievable. So Hitler was a big car buff, he was a really big car buff, and the idea of that Volkswagen was created by Adolf Hitler. And what he saw in Germany at the time, so this is pre-World War II, this is between World War I and World War II, that cars were only for rich people in Germany, and he wanted to make material things available to the everyday person, this was one of his goals.

Stephen Semple:

And so before the war, what Hitler saw when he looked to the US is he saw a higher standard of living when he looked at the US, he saw inexpensive consumer items, radios, TVs, refrigerators, cars were owned by regular everyday folks. And he was a big admirer of Henry Ford.

Dave Young:

That was a mutual relationship, wasn't it?

Stephen Semple:

That was a mutual relationship, a lot of people forget that it was a mutual relationship. And in 1927, 80% of all cars owned were owned by Americans.

Dave Young:

Oh wow, okay.

Stephen Semple:

80% of all cars were owned by Americans in 1927. So Hitler wanted a car for the people, that's what he wanted to do. He hired Ferdinand Porsche, yes, that Porsche.

Dave Young:

That guy.

Stephen Semple:

To design a car, but he wanted something that was affordable and reliable.