Volkswagen Independent Service

The People's Car

Volkswagen was established in Germany in 1938 with a single founding aim: to build a standard car for the general public — the name itself means 'people's car' in German. Today the Volkswagen Group umbrella covers marques including Audi, Škoda, SEAT, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Scania, with trucks also built in Brazil and buses in South Africa under local names.

During the Second World War the company's industrial capacity served the military; after the war its factories were reorganised, and by 1950 Volkswagen had returned to its former production strength. The classic Beetle lived on for decades, still being built in Mexico and Egypt when it passed the twenty-million mark in 1981 — a record at the time.

From the 1980s the company accelerated its worldwide expansion. The range of the era included the Golf — the marque's best-seller and, in time, the best-selling car in all of Europe — alongside the Polo, Derby, Scirocco, Passat and Santana. The second-generation Golf of 1983 introduced an environmentally conscious catalytic exhaust system that gradually spread across the whole range, and the sixteen-valve GTI went on to win the Group A World Rally Championship in 1986. On 23 March 1987 the fifty-millionth Volkswagen left the production line.

Under Dr. Carl Hahn, who took the helm in 1981, Volkswagen began building the Santana in China — an early move into a vast market — and completed the takeover of Spain's SEAT, which continued to develop new models under its management. Research remained central throughout, from the AUTO 2000 project to experimental vehicles exploring comfort, safety and environmental technology.