The flower I pulled off the internet.
From Wikipedia"
The Volkswagen Beetle, officially called the Volkswagen Type 1 (or informally the Volkswagen Bug), is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. With over 21 million manufactured in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single design platform anywhere in the world.
Although designed in the 1930s, the Beetle was only produced in
significant numbers from 1945 onwards, when the model was internally
designated the Volkswagen Type 1, and marketed simply as the
"Volkswagen". Later models were designated VW 1200, 1300, 1500, 1302 or
1303, the former three indicating engine displacement
and the latter two being derived from the type number and not
indicative of engine capacity. The model became widely known in its home
country as the Käfer (German for "beetle") and was later marketed as such in Germany, and as the Volkswagen Beetle in other countries.
In the 1950s, the Beetle was more comfortable and powerful than most European small cars, having been designed for sustained high speed on the Autobahn. It remained a top seller in the U.S., owing much of its success to high build-quality and innovative advertising, ultimately giving rise to variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the Volkswagen Type 2 bus.
Along with cars including the Morris Minor, Fiat 500, Renault 4CV and Dauphine, and Citroën 2CV,
the Beetle pioneered the modern continental economy car and later
served as the benchmark for the initial two generations of North
American compact cars, including the Chevrolet Corvair and Ford Falcon, as well as later subcompact cars such as the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto.
The Beetle had marked a significant trend led by Volkswagen, Fiat, and Renault whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout had increased from 2.6 percent of continental Western Europe's car production in 1946 to 26.6 percent in 1956. The 1948 Citroën 2CV and other European models marked a later trend to front-wheel drive in the European small car market, a trend that would come to dominate that market. In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf model succeeded the Beetle. In 1994, Volkswagen unveiled the Concept One, a "retro"-themed concept car with a resemblance to the original Beetle, and in 1998 introduced the "New Beetle", built on the Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1.
In a 1999 international poll for the world's most influential car of the 20th century, the Type 1 came fourth, after the Ford Model T, the Mini, and the Citroën DS.
By 2002, over 21 million Type 1s had been produced, but by 2003,
annual production had dropped to 30,000 from a peak of 1.3 million in
1971. 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). This last Beetle, nicknamed El Rey (Spanish for "The King" after a legendary Mexican song by José Alfredo Jiménez) was delivered to the company's museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.
To celebrate the occasion, Volkswagen marketed a final special series
of 3,000 Beetles marketed as "Última Edición" (Final Edition) in light
blue (Aquarius Blue) or beige (Harvest Moon Beige). Each car included
the 1.6 engine, whitewall tires, a CD player with four speakers, chrome
bumpers, trim, hub caps and exterior mirrors, a Wolfsburg emblem above
the front trunk's handle, chrome glove box badge, body coloured wheels,
tinted glass, a rear parcel shelf, and VW Ultima Edicion plaque.
A mariachi
band serenaded production of the last car. In Mexico, there was also an
advertising campaign as a goodbye for the Beetle. For example, in one
of the ads was a very small parking space on the street, and many big
cars tried to park in it, but could not. After a while, a sign appears
in that parking space saying: "Es increíble que un auto tan pequeño deje un vacío tan grande"
(It is incredible that a car so small can leave such a large void).
Another depicted the rear end of a 1954 Beetle (year in which Volkswagen
first established in Mexico) in the left side of the ad, reading "Erase una vez..." (Once upon a time...) and the last 2003 Beetle in the right side, reading "Fin" (The end). There were other ads with the same nostalgic tone. The Volkswagen Sedan will be used as a taxi in Mexico City until 2013. The Mexican government is removing this type of taxi and already made the green colours change into red-gold
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