* 1972 – Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model-T.

* 2003 – In Mexico, the last ' old style ' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

* 1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden.

* February 17 – Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model T when the 15, 007, 034th Beetle is produced.

* September 3 – Mort Walker, American cartoonist ( Beetle Bailey )

** Volkswagen Beetle ( made 1938 – 2003 )

** Volkswagen New Beetle ( made 1997 – 2010 )

The Beetle featured a rear-located, rear-wheel drive, air-cooled four-cylinder, boxer engine in a two-door bodywork featuring a flat front windscreen, accommodating four passengers and providing luggage storage under the front bonnet and behind the rear seat – and offering a coefficient of drag of 0. 41.

During this post-war period, the Beetle had superior performance in its category with a top speed of and 0 – 100 km / h ( 0 – 60 mph ) in 27. 5 seconds with fuel consumption of 6. 7 l / 100 km ( 36 mpg ) for the standard engine.

The diesel Beetle was time tested on the Nürburgring and achieved 0 – 100 km / h ( 0 – 62 mph ) in 60 seconds.

The Golf would be periodically redesigned over its lifetime – entering its sixth generation in 2008 – with only a few components carried over between generations, while the Beetle had only minor refinements of its original design.

VW announced the end of production in June 2003, citing decreasing demand, and the final original Type 1 VW Beetle ( No. 21, 529, 464 ) rolled off the production line at Puebla, Mexico, on 30 July 2003 – 65 years after its original launch and unprecedented 58-year production run ( counting from 1945, the year VW recognizes as the first year of non-Nazi funded production ).

The Beetle is also used as the basis for the Formula Vee open-wheel racing category – specifically, the front suspension crossmember assembly ( the shock absorber mounts are sometimes removed, depending on regulations in the class ), and the engine and transaxle assembly ( usually the earlier swing-axle type, not the later double-jointed axle ).

* The Beetle: From Hitler to Hippies – slideshow by Life magazine

While the previously introduced Ford Maverick offered either straight-6 or V8 engine and twin bench seats, the Pinto offered an inline-4 engine, and bucket seats – more in keeping with small imports such as the Volkswagen Beetle, available since 1949, the Toyota Corolla, introduced to North America March 1968, and the newly introduced Datsun 1200 which appeared in 1970.

The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia is a 2 + 2 coupe and convertible marketed from 1955 to 1974 by Volkswagen – combining the chassis and mechanics of the Type 1 ( Beetle ), styling by Luigi Segre of the Italian carrozzeria Ghia, and hand-built bodywork by German coach-builder Karmann.

The first-generation Corvair featured a rear swing axle design similar to that of the Renault Dauphine and Volkswagen Beetle – a design which eliminates universal joints at the wheels and wherein the rear wheels are always perpendicular to the driveshafts.

* Tire pressure differential: As with the Renault Dauphine and pre-1968 Volkswagen Beetle, Corvair engineers relied on a cost-free tire pressure differential to eliminate oversteer characteristics – low front and high rear tire pressure – a strategy which induced understeer ( increasing front slip angles faster than the rear ).

* July 30 – The last old-style Volkswagen Beetle rolls off its production line in Puebla, Puebla, Mexico.

He is the fourth child of South African-born Simone Lyons and former Rallycross driver John Button, who was well known in the UK during the 1970s for his so-called Colorado Beetle Volkswagen.

An early version of this type of transmission was the Autostick, which was used in the Volkswagen Beetle and Karmann Ghia from 1967 to 1976, where the clutch was disengaged by servo when the driver pushed downward slightly on the gear shift lever.

Still a Volkswagen Beetle, he ( like the other Autobots ) possesses the added ability to generate a " holo-matter " avatar of a young female to masquerade as a driver and to otherwise interact with humans.

Kadett A and B were technically simple cars whose task was to compete with the market leader, the Volkswagen Beetle.

Oracle, the team's leader, refers to the group by that name in a conversation with the new Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, and later within the series.

" ( Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker confirmed the story, relating a slightly expanded version in his autobiography, Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook, 2001.

The Blues transitioned to the straight-wing Grumman F9F-2 Panther on 13 July 1949, wherein the F8F-1 " Beetle Bomb " was relegated to solo aerobatics before the main show, until it crashed on takeoff at a training show in Pensacola in 1950.

Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at the Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page.

They are or were used in: the Volkswagen Beetle, some Porsche and Subaru cars, many BMW and Honda motorcycles, and aircraft engines ( for propeller driven aircraft ), etc.

The Volkswagen Beetle was an icon of West German reconstruction.

Classic works of this Urban Gothic include Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ( 1886 ), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray ( 1891 ), George du Maurier's Trilby ( 1894 ), Richard Marsh's The Beetle: A Mystery ( 1897 ), Henry James ' The Turn of the Screw ( 1898 ), and the stories of Arthur Machen.

The Volkswagen Beetle was an icon of West German reconstruction.

Japanese JR Kyūshū Jet Ferry operates Beetle five times a day.

Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.

Along with birds, a host of insects are attracted to the flowerhead, such as bees, for example the Cape Honeybee, and various beetle species such as rove beetles and the beetles of the huge family Scarabaeidae such as the Protea Beetle Trichostetha fascicularis and monkey beetles.

* In the Ultimate Spider-Man video game, the Beetle was reported to have ducked into the Latverian Embassy after evading Spider-Man.

In the special edition of the game, the player can look at concept art that shows what happens to Beetle after his confrontation with Spider-Man.

The Lada was envisaged as a " people's car " like the Citroën 2CV or the VW Beetle.

In 1950, the Volkswagen Type 2 adapted a bus-shaped body to the compact Volkswagen Beetle.

National Lampoons fake Volkswagen Beetle print advertisement mocking Ted Kennedy's Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident | Chappaquiddick incident.

This resulted in the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the most successful car designs of all time.

The Porsche 64 was developed in 1939 using many components from the Beetle.

During World War II, Volkswagen production turned to the military version of the Volkswagen Beetle, the Kübelwagen, 52, 000 produced, and Schwimmwagen, 14, 000 produced.

Porsche commissioned a Zuffenhausen-based company, Reutter Karosserie, which had previously collaborated with the firm on Volkswagen Beetle prototypes, to produce the 356's steel body.

1952 Porsche 356 K / 9-1 Prototype In post-war Germany, parts were generally in short supply, so the 356 automobile used components from the Volkswagen Beetle, including its internal combustion engine, transmission, and suspension.

The sleek bodywork was designed by Erwin Komenda who also had designed the body of the Beetle.

Porsche's signature designs have, from the beginning, featured air-cooled rear-engine configurations ( like the Beetle ), rare for other car manufacturers, but producing automobiles that are very well balanced.