vw disambiguation . this article is about volkswagen passenger cars . for the parent group see volkswagen group . for volkswagen vans trucks and buses see volkswagen commercial vehicles . volkswagen type public industry automotive founded january 4 1937 ; 79 years ago 1937 01 04 founder german labour front daf headquarters wolfsburg germany area served worldwide key people matthias m ller ceo products automobile production output 9.73 m units 2013 revenue us 244.985 b 2014 profit us 13.393 b total assets us 424.982 b 2014 number of employees 588.9 k 2015 parent volkswagen group subsidiaries volkswagen commercial vehicles website vw.com volkswagen german pronunciation f lks va listen help info ; shortened to vw is a german automaker founded in 4 january 1937 by the german labour front headquartered in wolfsburg germany . it is the flagship marque of the volkswagen group and is the largest automaker worldwide currently . 1 volkswagen translates as people s automobile in german . the company s current international slogan is volkswagen . 2 3 in american english the pronunciation is approximized as volks wagon listen help info . 4 better source needed contents 1 history 1.1 1932 1938 people s car project 1.2 1945 1948 british army intervention unclear future 1.3 1948 1961 icon of post war west german regeneration 1.4 1961 1973 beetle to golf 1.5 1974 1990 product line expansion 1.6 1991 1999 1.7 2000 present further expansion 2 operations 2.1 worldwide presence 2.2 work life balance 2.3 relationship with porsche and the volkswagen law 2.4 automuseum 3 global sales figures 4 current models 4.1 gti models 4.2 electric models 4.2.1 gte models 4.2.2 e models 4.3 r models 5 historic models 6 electric and alternative fuel vehicles 6.1 neat ethanol vehicles 6.2 flexible fuel vehicles 6.3 hybrid vehicles 6.4 plug in electric vehicles 7 environmental record 7.1 diesel emission violations 8 false advertising 9 awards 10 motorsport 10.1 formula racing 10.2 world rally championship 10.3 dakar rally 10.4 volkswagen motorsport worldwide 11 literature 12 see also 13 notes 14 references 15 further reading 16 external links history edit for vehicle timeline tables see volkswagen timeline . 1932 1938 people s car project edit model of porsche type 12 z ndapp museum of industrial culture nuremberg volkswagen was originally created in 1936 by the german labour front deutsche arbeitsfront . 5 in the early 1930s the german auto industry was still largely composed of luxury models and the average german could rarely afford anything more than a motorcycle . as a result only one german out of 50 owned a car . seeking a potential new market some car makers began independent peoples car projects the mercedes 170h adler autobahn steyr 55 and hanomag 1.3 l among others . vw logo during the 1930s initials surrounded by a stylized cogwheel and swastika wings 6 the trend was not new as b la bar nyi is credited with having conceived the basic design in the mid 1920s . josef ganz developed the standard superior going as far as advertising it as the german volkswagen . in germany the company hanomag mass produced the 2 10 ps komissbrot a small cheap rear engined car from 1925 to 1928 . 7 also in czechoslovakia the hans ledwinka s penned tatra t77 a very popular car amongst the german elite was becoming smaller and more affordable at each revision . 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 . he felt the small cars at the time were just stripped down big cars . instead he built a car he called the volksauto from the ground up in 1933 using many of the ideas floating around at the time and several of his own putting together a car with an air cooled rear engine torsion bar suspension and a beetle shape the front hood rounded for better aerodynamics necessary as it had a small engine . 8 in 1932 with many of the above projects still in development or early stages of production adolf hitler got involved ordering the production of a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km h 62 mph . he wanted his german citizens to have the same access to a car as the americans . 8 the people s car would be available to citizens of the third reich through a savings plan at 990 reichsmark 396 in 1930s u.s. dollars about the price of a small motorcycle the average income being around 32rm a week . 9 10 despite heavy lobbying in favor of one of the existing projects it soon became apparent that private industry could not turn out a car for only 990rm . thus hitler chose to sponsor an all new state owned factory using ferdinand porsche s design with some of hitler s design constraints including an air cooled engine so nothing could freeze . the intention was that ordinary germans would buy the car by means of a savings scheme f nf mark die woche musst du sparen willst du im eigenen wagen fahren five marks a week you must put aside if you want to drive your own car which around 336 000 people eventually paid into . however the entire project was financially unsound and only the corruption and lack of accountability of the nazi regime made it possible . 11 note 1 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 . the car already had its distinctive round shape and air cooled flat four rear mounted engine . the vw car was just one of many kdf programs which included things such as tours and outings . the prefix volks people s was not just applied to cars but also to other products in germany ; the volksempf nger radio receiver for instance . on 28 may 1936 the gesellschaft zur vorbereitung des deutschen volkswagens mbh sometimes abbreviated to gezuvor 12 was established by the deutsche arbeitsfront . it was later renamed volkswagenwerk gmbh on 16 september 1937 . 13 14 vw type 82e erwin komenda the longstanding auto union chief designer part of ferdinand porsche s hand picked team 8 developed the car body of the prototype which was recognizably the beetle known today . it was one of the first cars designed with the aid of a wind tunnel a method used for german aircraft design since the early 1920s . the car designs were put through rigorous tests and achieved a record breaking million miles of testing before being deemed finished . the building of the new factory started 26 may 1938 in the new town of kdf stadt modern day wolfsburg which had been purpose built for the factory workers . 13 this factory had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939 . none were actually delivered to any holder of the completed saving stamp books though one type 1 cabriolet was presented to hitler on 20 april 1944 his 55th birthday . 13 war changed production to military vehicles the type 82 k belwagen bucket car utility vehicle vw s most common wartime model and the amphibious schwimmwagen manufactured for german forces . as was common with much of the production in nazi germany during the war slave labor was utilized in the volkswagen plant e.g. from arbeitsdorf concentration camp . the company would admit in 1998 that it used 15 000 slaves during the war effort . german historians estimated that 80 % of volkswagen s wartime workforce was slave labor . citation needed many of the slaves were reported to have been supplied from the concentration camps upon request from plant managers . a lawsuit was filed in 1998 by survivors for restitution for the forced labor . 15 volkswagen would set up a voluntary restitution fund . 16 volkswagen factory . 1945 1948 british army intervention unclear future edit the company owes its post war existence largely to one man war time british army officer major ivan hirst reme . in april 1945 kdf stadt and its heavily bombed factory were captured by the americans and subsequently handed over to the british within whose occupation zone the town and factory fell . the factories were placed under the control of oldham born hirst by then a civilian military governor with the occupying forces . at first one plan was to use it for military vehicle maintenance and possibly dismantle and ship it to britain . since it had been used for military production though not of kdf wagens and had been in hirst s words a political animal rather than a commercial enterprise technically making it liable for destruction under the terms of the potsdam agreement the equipment could have been salvaged as war reparations . allied dismantling policy changed in late 1946 to mid 1947 though heavy industry continued to be dismantled until 1951 . one of the factory s war time kdf wagen cars had been taken to the factory for repairs and abandoned there . hirst had it repainted green and demonstrated it to british army headquarters . short of light transport in september 1945 the british army was persuaded to place a vital order for 20 000 cars . however production facilities had been massively disrupted there was a refugee crisis at and around the factory and some parts such as carburetors were unavailable . with striking humanity and great engineering and management ingenuity hirst and his german assistant heinrich nordhoff who went on to run the wolfsberg facility after military government ended in 1949 helped to stabilize the acute social situation while simultaneously re establishing production . hirst for example used his fine engineering experience to arrange the manufacture of carburetors the original producers being effectively lost in the russian zone . 17 the first few hundred cars went to personnel from the occupying forces and to the german post office . some british service personnel were allowed to take their beetles back to the united kingdom when they were demobilised . 18 in 1986 hirst explained how it was commonly misunderstood that he had run wolfsburg as a british army major . the defeated german staff he said were initially sullen and unresponsive having been conditioned by many years of nazism and they were sometimes unresponsive to orders . at nordhoff s suggestion he sent back to england for his officer s uniform and from then on had no difficulty in having his instructions followed . hirst can be seen photographed at wolfsburg in his uniform although he was not actually a soldier at the time but a civilian member of the military government . the title of major was sometimes used by someone who had left the army as a courtesy title . in fact hirst chose not to do so . the post war industrial plans for germany set out rules that governed which industries germany was allowed to retain . these rules set german car production at a maximum of 10 % of 1936 car production . 19 by 1946 the factory produced 1 000 cars a month a remarkable feat considering it was still in disrepair . owing to roof and window damage production had to stop when it rained and the company had to barter new vehicles for steel for production . the car and its town changed their second world war era names to volkswagen and wolfsburg respectively and production increased . it was still unclear what was to become of the factory . it was offered to representatives from the american australian british and french motor industries . famously all rejected it . after an inspection of the plant sir william rootes head of the british