Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle

by Andrea Hiott

  Electricity was still something to be wondered at in America, too. In 1939 at the New York World’s Fair held at Flushing Meadows in Queens, an advertisement for the Commonwealth and Southern utility company showed a long candle beside a squat but brilliant lightbulb, telling its readers: “It now costs the average American household only $1.71 to light its house or apartment by electricity for a month … If this home had to use candles, it would have to pay $346.65 a month for an equivalent amount of light …”1 The text goes on to say that it would require over half a ton of candles, some 5,778 of them in fact. In suggesting that it will be innovations in electric lighting that will, literally and metaphorically, “make the future bright,” the ad implicitly asks Americans to trust the new market that is emerging. Private enterprise, the ad explains, “rewards individual initiative,” “encourages inventive genius,” and “induces investors to supply capital.”

  By the time of the World’s Fair, the United States was pulling itself out of the Depression, and it already had quite a history of trying to bring electricity to its population. It had been nearly 200 years since Ben Franklin had flown his kites and made his notes about charges and sparks. And Thomas Edison, having demonstrated the first incandescent lightbulb only three years after Ferdinand Porsche was born, had since developed the first electrical lighting system with a common generator that allowed lines to be connected to various homes. By 1882, Edison had acquired his first 50 customers toward what, just over half a century later, was one of the main staples of the growing free market: the business of energy and light. It was a slow process: In 1935, nine out of ten farms still did not have electricity in many American states, but the market for it, alongside a desire for it, were taking off. A new technological world was arriving, and it would bring with it a seemingly endless amount of bewildering new choices: Old problems were being solved, but new ones were being created.

  For Americans emerging from the 1930s, this change in economic and social perspective, the idea of looking toward the future, was not yet understood so much as felt: it had an emotional resonance. For the first time, 44 million people from all over the globe could travel to Flushing Meadows to intermingle at the biggest World’s Fair in American history. They could hear a speech on cosmic rays given by Albert Einstein, listen to President Roosevelt talk about new technologies, stand in front of a Vermeer painting that had been shipped all the way from Amsterdam, see a streamlined pencil sharpener, or touch a new fabric called nylon. They could gaze at color photography—the first splashes of reds and greens ever reproduced—or be introduced to the possibility of controlling temperature through something called “air-conditioning.” Each evening, crowds could also bask in the glow of fluorescent lights, as, for the first time, the exhibits and buildings were draped in them. People called it “otherworldly” and “magical.” They let themselves get carried away; many were hungry to feel optimistic again, to come together and share the warm expectation that tomorrow would be better than today.

  In the swarmed Transportation Zone of the fair, people could enter the General Motors Futurama exhibit, a 36,000-square-foot miniworld complete with thousands of tiny cars, highways, and homes that presented itself as a visualization of what the country was soon to become, like looking at the world through the window of a time machine. This was truly an original vision at the time, as much of America was still rural and blanketed in farms and fields. According to Dan Howland, the editor of the Journal of Ride Theory, “the audience had never even considered a future like this.… There wasn’t an interstate freeway system in 1939. Not many people owned a car.”2

  A poster for the “World of Tomorrow,” the 1939 New York World’s Fair. An unprecedented poster campaign accompanied the fair, and many of the city’s best designers (such as Paul Rand) contributed to it. (photo credit 4.1)

  In some ways, the 1939 World’s Fair echoed the ceremony that had taken place just a year earlier in The Town of the Strength through Joy Car, when Adolf Hitler had christened his “modern workers’ city” and spoke of motorizing the population; Futurama reflected that same vision Hitler had of providing Germany with its first network of autobahns. In other words, the powerful elite of both Germany and America now believed that the future would be built around the automobile, and they were working toward that future in a very significant way. The difference in Hitler’s vision and the version presented by General Motors, however, was bound up in the very idea vaunted by the lightbulb ad: the importance of free enterprise. The push and pull between markets and governments around the world was entering a new phase, and the question of which economic and political path was best was still a matter of debate. In America, President Roosevelt’s New Deal had momentarily shifted economic power toward governmental control in an attempt to alleviate the Depression, beginning public projects to employ people and bring back a spirit of enterprise. It was working, but it had come with a great deal of controversy and debate. New Deal projects that supplied electricity or infrastructures made private companies feel as if the government was imposing on their domain, but in the eyes of Roosevelt and his administration, those projects were a way of providing work and money to the people, and of lifting them out of the Depression. American businessmen were quick to challenge governmental interference in the market, however, engaging in a frustrating deliberation that would nevertheless ultimately prove to be for the country’s good. Hitler’s People’s Car and People’s City was an answer to those same dire economic times, after all, but rather than deal with the inherent tensions of a democratic system, his party blamed democracy itself: Business and the economy could not be trusted to the masses, Hitler said, but needed to be funneled through one ultimate point of control.

  Taken together, these two urges—one toward centralization of power, the other toward a responsible diffusion of power—were to shape the events of the next two decades in profound and deeply transformative ways: Along with their new political and economic realities, the United States and Europe would enter into a race to develop new technology, a debate about free and managed markets, and a search for the balance between two seemingly contradictory human desires: to have both freedom and control at once. “The eyes of the Fair are on the future,”3 the official pamphlet for the World’s Fair read, promising that the best preparation for tomorrow is “familiarity with today.” And it was true: If one looked closely, the next five years were already implicit. The Second World War, less than a year away for most of the countries participating in the Fair, would soon prove the importance of technology and communication in an increasingly interconnected world. The United Nations would be created. International borders would be redrawn. Great amounts of money and research would be placed into weaponry and transportation. Mass production would arrive on a scale as yet unseen. Ballistics and code breaking would jump-start the development of electronic computer technology. And most unforgettable of all, endeavors like the Manhattan Project would put the peril of nuclear weapons into worldwide collective consciousness, contributing to the iron curtain that was soon to fall. By the close of the 1940s, technological innovation would be associated with a new urgency, one that demanded a new kind of clarity and care.

  In 1933, in London’s Daily Mail, the 3rd Viscount Rothermere of Britain had written that it was “Germany’s great good fortune to have found a leader who can combine for the public good all the most vigorous elements in the country,”4 and by “vigorous elements,” he’d meant German spirit, ingenuity, and a reverence for authority and work. There had been words of praise for Adolf Hitler from many other countries as well. But by 1939, all were trying to take those words back. The same people who had earlier sung the praises of the German chancellor and the remarkable growth he was bringing to his country were now walking along the Futurama’s moving sidewalks wondering how much longer it would be before their countries were at war. And, as evidenced by Albert Einstein’s presence in America (he had fled Germany earlier that year) and his speech on the Fair’s openin
g day, a new kind of refugee was becoming part of America’s cultural and intellectual elite, men and women coming over in an attempt to escape Hitler and his racism and vitriol. The World’s Fair and its emphasis on an international future was a harbinger of the mixed social and economic world that would soon emerge. And so was Germany’s conspicuous absence from the party. Hitler had refused to allow Germans to attend.

  After that tense episode of Anton Porsche finding out about his son’s secret lab in 1889, Ferdinand had not abandoned his electrical experiments. But something had shifted between them: Both father and son seemed to have realized that the situation was not going to change; they had to accept it, like it or not. Another son had been born to the Porsches, and was coming of age by then, and the younger boy was more excited about following his father’s path than was the teenage Ferdinand, so his father began looking toward him to take up the family trade. Ferdinand’s mother, Anna, continued to speak to Anton in quiet moments, wondering if perhaps Ferdinand really did have some kind of gift, wondering if perhaps they needed to allow him to explore it. Eventually Anton stopped bothering his son so much about what he did in his free time, just as long as he kept up with his work.

  One night, walking back from a political meeting in town that had followed a long day in the shop, Anton received an enormous shock. Perhaps he even stopped and shook his head, wondering if he’d already walked home, if he’d fallen asleep and was stumbling through a dream. The trees and grass stretched out in front of him along the path to the house had a strange glow, a reflected brightness that grew stronger with each step. The house itself seemed to have been filled with some kind of luminous liquid that was now dripping out of the windows and doors. Anton could see the profiles of his wife and children, shadows on the wall. His son had succeeded in his experiments: Anton was now the only man in the entire town whose house and workshop were lit with electric light.

  It had not been easy to keep the surprise from his father, but Ferdinand had waited until everything was working properly before he’d taken it downstairs and put it in place, unveiling it that night for his brother and sisters and mother, knowing his father was on his way home. He’d built the entire system, including the generator, from scratch, with the help of nothing more than a curious mind, the knowledge that comes from trial and error, and whatever intuition had been gifted to him from who knows where. It was astounding, not only to his family but also to the town. Anton told his son that he could attend night classes at the local technical school, if he wished. Ferdinand was thrilled.

  Ferdinand Porsche as a boy in the early 1890s, with the electrical system he built from scratch for his family’s home. (photo credit 5.1)

  As Ferdinand got older, however, he began to wonder about bigger things, about Vienna and the innovations being undertaken there. His classes at the village school were not quite able to satisfy his curiosity. In fact, sometimes he learned just as much by studying the work being done at Ginzkey’s1 carpet factory, the place where he’d had his first encounter with electric light. Ginzkey’s business had become an impressive and thriving industry by then, and his influence in the area around Maffersdorf was considerable. Anton Porsche respected Mr. Ginzkey immensely and listened to him when he spoke about the prospects he saw for Ferdinand. It was perhaps time to send him to Vienna, Ginzkey said. Anton agreed, and thus when Ferdinand Porsche turned eighteen, he was allowed to leave Maffersdorf and go to the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s thriving capital.

  Mr. Ginzkey, having full confidence in Ferdinand, set up a job for him with a company that manufactured electrical equipment and machinery. Ferdinand fell into step immediately upon starting his new job, working long hours, sometimes sneaking into classes at the Vienna Technical University at night. Ferdinand knew he had none of the usual engineering degrees expected of someone in his position at the time, but he was so good at what he did that he advanced quickly nonetheless; people often talked of his “sixth sense.” By the time he was twenty-two, the obsessive young man had already worked his way up to becoming a company manager. He’d also started thinking more and more about the newest invention in transportation: the motor car.

  Ferdinand Porsche (far rigiht) during a learning session on his first job in Vienna at Bella Egger2. He is the only one taking notes. (photo credit 5.2)

  Around the same time that Ferdinand Porsche had been born in 1875, Europe had experienced a turn toward industrialization, and automotive pioneers had begun developing internal combustion engines and connecting them to vehicles that were not cars so much as carts, but that were nevertheless a large step forward from the usual horse-and-carriage method of mobility. By the time Ferdinand Porsche was an adult, automobiles had come a long way: Those early gasoline-powered carts had grown, widened, and attached themselves to four large wooden wheels.3 Now people could ride in seats on the carts and steer; they could also control their speed. Still, the majority of the population detested the motor car’s noise and its rude way of taking up the entire street. Few people took them very seriously in those early decades; few considered them much more than an upper-class toy. The horse and carriage still ruled the roads.

  But then, as the twentieth century began, the automobile began to generate more excitement and mystique, even among those who were not wealthy enough to own one. One reason for this was the establishment of the auto race in 1894: The very first one ran in France from Paris to Rouen and then from Rouen to Bordeaux. People heard about it and came out to the streets to watch and cheer. The newspapers reported on it extensively. Such races gradually became frequent, much-anticipated events. And the motor car became a source of amusement rather than a nuisance that disturbed horses and made the streets unsafe: Particular cars or drivers took on the quality of a favorite sports team or sports figure, and the race thus became something one could participate in without having to experience firsthand.

  Auto racing was exciting, but the transportation option that was having the most success in finding new customers in the 1880s was the motorcycle. In many ways, the idea of individual transportation for the masses had started not with the car, but with a two-wheeler, the bicycle. The bicycle had been popularized in Paris in the mid-1800s, and it was a natural step for many of Europe’s bicycle manufacturers to find a way for a two-wheeler to propel itself. So began the motorcycle business. Though auto races slowly increased people’s appreciation of the automobile, it was nevertheless the motorcycle that seemed the logical mode of transportation for everyday life, and they caught on much more quickly than cars. From 1921 to 1931 the number of motorcycles in Germany rose from 26,700 to just under 800,000. For that reason, at least in big cities like Vienna, the traditional horse-and-carriage manufacturers started making motorcycles as well. One such place was Jacob Lohner & Co., a company that would play a big role in Ferdinand Porsche’s development. It was one of the oldest and most respected luxury coach–building establishments in the world, and the official supplier for the Imperial Majesty himself, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

  Motorcycles brought new business for carriage maker Jacob Lohner, and he was glad to have taken the risk of getting into the new venture. In 1896, however, seeing the demand for two-wheelers beginning to taper off, Lohner decided it was time to take an even bigger risk. He wanted to try his hand at developing the new technology of motor cars. To do so, he’d need to expand his staff. He wanted someone young, someone curious, someone who knew his way around an electronics shop. Being friends with some of Ferdinand Porsche’s coworkers, Lohner soon heard about their unusually talented colleague from the country. Ferdinand was the perfect candidate: young, curious, and longing to try his hand at building a car. Lohner asked him if he might like to come around the shop sometime. What Lohner wanted, he told Ferdinand, was to build an electric car. Luckily, electricity was already something Ferdinand understood well.

  Energy and its relation to mobility4 has long been a mysterious connection that innovators are hungry to explore. Engines are basically controlled
explosions of energy; building an engine is a way of directing energy to achieve maximum force, and it comes with a compelling rush of adrenaline. Leonardo da Vinci started making drawings of self-propelled vehicles as far back as the fifteenth century, but it was only at the turn of the twentieth century that something modestly resembling the modern automobile was designed. In those years, men like Karl Benz, the highly respected German engineer who acquired the first patent for a gasoline-powered car in 1886, worked mainly with automobiles that used internal-combustion engines. But Lohner wanted to try using electricity. Many of the first auto races had actually been won by using either steam or electric power, so it was still a toss-up as to which way the future would go: by no means did it look certain that the world would become oil-dependent (the petroleum industry was only just getting started, and that industry was certainly not dependent on cars). Lohner chose electric power because he had the Imperial Majesty to consider. Being the official supplier for the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s transportation, if he was going to make a car, it had better be regal. That meant something quiet and clean, something worthy of being taken to a theater premiere or a state dinner. The messy, noisy, internal-combustion engine simply would not do. He discussed all this with the young man from Maffersdorf, who had never built a car, but was anxious to try. Lohner hired him, and they set to work. From that moment on, Ferdinand Porsche’s main obsession would be the automobile. It was the first step on the path that would eventually lead to the creation of the Bug.