The prefix Volks- ('People's') was not just applied to cars, but also to other products in Germany the ' Volksempfänger' radio receiver for instance. The VW car was just one of many KdF programs, which included things such as tours and outings. The car already had its distinctive round shape and air-cooled, flat-four, rear-mounted engine. Prototypes of the car called the 'KdF-Wagen' (German: Kraft durch Freude – 'Strength through Joy') appeared from 1938 onwards (the first cars had been produced in Stuttgart). However, the project was not commercially viable, and only government support was able to keep it afloat. The intention was that German families could buy the car through a savings scheme ( ' Fünf Mark die Woche musst du sparen, willst du im eigenen Wagen fahren' – 'Five Marks a week you must set aside, if in your own car you wish to ride'), which around 336,000 people eventually paid into. Thus, Hitler chose to sponsor an all-new, state-owned factory using Ferdinand Porsche's design (with some of Hitler's design suggestions, including an air-cooled engine so nothing could freeze). It soon became apparent that private industry could not turn out a car for only 990 ℛℳ. The 'People's Car' would be available through a savings plan at 990 ℛℳ (US$396 in 1938)-about the price of a small motorcycle (the average income being around 32 ℛℳ a week). He wanted a car every German family would be able to afford. In 1934, with many of the above projects still in development or early stages of production, Adolf Hitler became involved, ordering the production of a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph). VW logo during the 1930s, initials surrounded by a stylised cogwheel and a spinning propeller that looked like a Hakenkreuz (Swastika) He built a car named the 'Volksauto' from the ground up in 1933, using many popular ideas and several of his own, putting together a car with an air-cooled rear engine, torsion bar suspension, and a 'beetle' shape, the front bonnet rounded for better aerodynamics (necessary as it had a small engine). Ferdinand Porsche, a well-known designer for high-end vehicles and race cars, had been trying for years to get a manufacturer interested in a small car suitable for a family. Also, in Czechoslovakia, the Hans Ledwinka designed Tatra T77, a very popular car amongst the German elite, was becoming smaller and more affordable at each revision.

In Germany, the company Hanomag mass-produced the 2/10 PS 'Kommissbrot', a small, cheap rear-engined car, from 1925 to 1928. Josef Ganz developed the Standard Superior (going as far as advertising it as the 'German Volkswagen'). The growing trend was not nascent Béla Barényi, a pioneering automotive engineer, is credited as already having conceived the basic design during the mid-1920s.

Seeking a potential new market, some car makers began independent 'people's car' projects – the Mercedes 170H, BMW 3/15, Adler AutoBahn, Steyr 55, and Hanomag 1.3L, among others. In the early 1930s, cars were a luxury – most Germans could afford nothing more elaborate than a motorcycle and only one German out of 50 owned a car. Volkswagen was established in 1937 by the German Labour Front ( Deutsche Arbeitsfront) in Berlin. Model of Porsche Type 12 (Zündapp), Museum of Industrial Culture, Nuremberg

4.5 Allegations of complicity with human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.

4.3 CEO's usage of pun based on Nazi slogan at Auschwitz (2019).

4.2 Collaboration with Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985).

2.3 Relationship with Porsche and the Volkswagen Law.

1.9 2017–present: Focus on electric vehicles.1.3 1945–1948: British military intervention.

1.2 1939–1944: Wartime production and Nazi concentration camp labour.

Compact key holder assembly