Volkswagen was founded in 1938 by Ferdinand Porsche and Robert Ley. It is headquartered in Wolfsburg Germany and, in 2007, was the world’s third largest producer of automobiles.
Volkswagen’s amazing success can be attributed mainly to one vehicle: the Beetle. Officially called the Type 1, the Beetle became the most produced car in history in 1972. Its production run was some 67 years from 1936 until 2003, when the last Type 1 rolled off the production line in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. It was car number 21,529,464, and was immediately shipped off to the company’s museum in Wolfsburg. In an international poll for car of the century, the beetle ranked fourth.
The successor to the Beetle was the Golf, which proved to be even more popular. Over 25 million VW Golfs have been sold since its production run began in 1974, and several successful models were introduced based on the Golf’s chassis.
Volkswagen has been one of the only profitable automakers during the current recession, and in July of 09 was able to add Porsche to its stable of brands. Porsche had long been planning to take over VW, but the recession lead Porsche’s holdings to drop in value to the point where Volkswagen was in position to turn the tables. The brands under the Volkswagen umbrella now include Audi, Porsche, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Bentley, SEAT, and Skoda.