Earliest design influence for the beetle trivia question

[allsidius]

I found out how to post photos, so here is some documentation to my claim that the Lincoln Zephyr inspired the VW 303/38 series design. Here is the 1936-37 Lincoln Zephyr.

Look at those front doors, windshield, and front fenders. Especially the doors are pure beetle. Also look at how the rear quarter window drops down instead of following the flat bottom line of the other windows. Now look at this Komenda sketch of 1939

This drawing is made after the first 44 prototypes, but still he toys with the dropping bottom line of the rear quarter window.
Here is the rear of the Lincoln, not too different from the beetle is it?[/img]

[Hammarlund]

It is not too surprising the Zephyr had somewhat European lines. Young Edsel Ford was largely responsible for its styling, and according to automotive historian Ralph Stein, he loved travelling in Europe and driving European cars.

Thus, Edsel's last significant project to reach fruition, the Lincoln Continental.
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[allsidius]

Here's the stern of the zephyr. Not too unfamiliar...

And the car that inspired it.. The 1933 Briggs Dream Car! Already with beetle doors!

[allsidius]

[allsidius]

I was stunned to find this picture of the 1938 MB 170 H, look at those side windows, especially the rears! Porsche had already worked closely with MB on the V30 series in 1937, but these lines can not be a coincidence!

I have still not found out which came first, the Bosch sloping headlights or the Beetle V303 prototype of december 1937. Does anyone know if the Bosch units were available at the time they changed the wooden mockup at Reutters?
December 1937:

Same mockup, a few weeks later:

The Adler Autobahn, launched in 1937. Are these beetle-type Bosch headlights?

Anyone wanting to shed light on this are most welcome!
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[johnshenry]

The Adler headlights look quite a bit different, at least the glass does...

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John Henry

'57 Deluxe
'56 Single Cab

[pav266]

During the 1930's, numerous manufacturers in Europe pioneered advanced technology on a volume production basis.

Case in point is the French manufacturer Citroen.

The Traction Avant was introduced in the mid 1930's with a host of features that are universal today:

Unit (monocoque) construction
Front wheel drive
Rack and pinion steering
4 wheel independent suspension (torsion bars)
Low center of gravity with excellent weight distribution
Flat floor
etc.

The depression and development costs forced Citroen into bankruptcy whereby they became owned by Michelin tire.

The Traction Avant was replaced in the mid 1950's by the DS, another very advanced and sophisticated design.
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Paul

1963 1200 Anthracite
1969 Citroen DS21 Pallas BVH
1974 Citroen SM 2.7L 5 speed injection electronique

[allsidius]

[Blue Baron]

I realize this thread was churned up after three years, and that I left a long post before, but it's an interesting topic.

To return to the origial question, I believe the final design of the car was influenced by the 1937 Ford.

In '37, Porsche visited the United States, and it's documented that he wired Germany to instruct the design team to hinge the doors from the front instead of the back, just like the Ford. (He even met with old Henry himself.) It's logical to conclude he might have borrowed other design elements for the final styling of the bug.

The Lincoln Zephyr has been mentioned, but I see a lot of the regular Ford in the final VW, from the fender bulges and headlights to the bumpers and split window.
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[allsidius]

I agree that a lot of cues seem to originate in the Ford Family, but one should remember that the 37 Ford got a lot of its design from the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr, being the big brother of the Ford family. Lincoln was Edsel's playground and where new design ideas were tried out, under Edsel's very competent hand. As early as 1928, the model A got a lot from the big brother and were called "Baby Lincolns" because of the harmonic design.

On the other hand, Porsche cooperated with the body shop at Daimler Benz, who built the bodies for the V30 series. The picture of the 1938 MB 170 shows quite an influence, although the doors were suicide still. MB built cars with suicide doors up to 1955! And its been documented that Porsche had little influence the other way, the rear engined MBs of the 1930s were independent from Porsches input. Josef Ganz who claimed to have originated all the fresh ideas of the VW was actually a consultant at MB until the Nazis made MB cancel the deal. Truth is, the heck motor was a promising way of building cars at the time and pursued by a lot of german and french companies.

One costly but necessary move in the design phase was the selection of specially designed headlights as opposed to off-the-shelf cheapskate units of the V30. I am not in doubt that this move iced the cake of Erwin Komendas design masterstroke and was a make or break decision that saved the design for another 60 years of production. Looking at the prototype with V30 headlights, I very much doubt that would have made it.

The split rear window was a necessary solution to the problem of increasing curvature in the rear of the cars in the late 30s and were adopted by many makes from 1934 and up to the 1940s. But noone else made them as late as march 1953, which makes the beetle pretzelfenster so memorable. A lot of people nowadays only think of beetles when you mention split rear windows but most american cars of 1938 had them. Maybe the longevity of the beetle kept them on the roads for so long that all others had been forgotten by the time the last splits disappeared from regular traffic.

35 years later, VW had the Golf prototype ready but in a butt-ugly design. The engineers made the top brass shell out the necessary lire to order the italian design house Guigiaro come up with iconic Golf 1 design. The only requirement from Leiding was that Beetle headlights (by now purchased at the rate of 2 million a year from a variety of manufacturers) should be incorporated in the Guigaro straight edge design. Maybe that also was a masterstroke, breaking up the box design of the first Golf, but I don't think it was based on looks, only cost.
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1973 1303S w sunroof Click to view image
1978 1303 convertible (sold)Click to view image
1966 1300 RIPClick to view image

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[79SuperVert]

I'm definitely enjoying this thread. I find it very interesting to see how designs evolve, sometimes through deliberate efforts, and sometimes through random influences that happen once and never again.
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[Fishynos72]

[allsidius]

How about a 6 m long V12 beetle?

Ferdinand and Ferry went to the US to visit Henry and Edsel in 37, their impressions went straight back to Komenda for incorporation in the VW 303 design.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Rare-Willoughby-Cou...818b#v4-41
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1973 1303S w sunroof Click to view image
1978 1303 convertible (sold)Click to view image
1966 1300 RIPClick to view image

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[allsidius]

And here's the 1937 Mercedes 170H that got lost in my previous post. Look at those side windows lines. This car was introduced while the Beetle got its final shape and while the Porsche team worked closely with Daimler Benz on the V30 series for which DB made the bodies.

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1973 1303S w sunroof Click to view image
1978 1303 convertible (sold)Click to view image
1966 1300 RIPClick to view image

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[allsidius]

Instead of cluttering another wonderful thread on theSamba, I revive this old thread here. Can anyone verify if the Bosch/Hella headlights that ended up on most of the V303 (not the sedan) and subsequent Volkswagens up to aug 1967, more or less, were designed specificially for the Volkswagen / KdF wagen?

If they were already available, why did they not just purchase a set for the mockup in december 1937? My theory is, the famous Bosch/Hella units were designed specificially for the beetle, and only later did many other manufacturers (Porsche 356, DKW, MB trucks) adapt the units because they were aerodynamically efficient and looked good? Here they are, in painted wood, just before christmas 1937.

[finster]

the adler autobahn came out in 1937 but by 1938 the close-set sloping headlights were deemed inefficient and an extra driving light was added to the rhd front wing/fender. however it showed that streamlined headlights were the way forward.
porsche was struggling to keep the design under the stipulated sale price so probably went with the simple upright units first. the envisioned production numbers of the kdf would be such to tempt component suppliers to get a contract. so either bosch approached porsche or vice versa to clinch a mutually agreeable deal.

the first V303 (may '38 ) has sloping headlights which have no fixing screw tab and the cover glass seems clear, so maybe these were prototype components too...

incidentally you're not the only one searching for answers https://jalopnik.com/this-might-br-the-first-car-to-have-the-iconic-vw-beetl-1846392097
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[allsidius]

Finster

Thank you for that upper photo, which I have never seen. As Undis has uncovered in his amazing Facebook post Volkswagen Prototypes, only V303/1 had those heavy duty chromed rings that fitted snugly to the front fenders that were hand shaped on those first 20-30 cars of the V303 and VW38 series, before stamped front fenders were available.

After that first car, IIIA-42801, the rest of the prototypes got slightly smaller rings, that did not fit the prototypes that well. A pronounced ridge can be seen on all those prototypes, the fender is supposed to take slightly bigger bezels!

I agree with the theory that the design of the ring and the fixation lip on the car, angle etc. seems to be settled in 1937, possibly for the Adler Autobahn. The Tatra mentioned in the Jalopy article, I am pretty sure was completed in simultaneously with the Adler, ie. 1937, not much earlier. My only problem with this theory is why did not Reutter just buy a set instead of making it out of wood, but possibly it was cheaper. Hourly wages for a pattern-maker was pretty low in those days.

Thanks also for the Jalopnik article, haven't seen that one before!

Below is a picture I nicked from the internet, showing the details of the front fender not perfectly shaped for the smaller ring of the production headlights.

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1973 1303S w sunroof Click to view image
1978 1303 convertible (sold)Click to view image
1966 1300 RIPClick to view image

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[RUNKLE]

Two more images to add, showing the detail of the smaller headlight assembly, IIIA-43021 and IIIA-43023

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1950 Standard - 1959 Ragtop - 1961 Ragtop two fold - 1964 Sunroof

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[allsidius]

Thanks, these pics are great, and they show so well how right the Grundmanns got the fender headlight molding, looks really dramatically different compared to the stamped fenders that came with the VW 39 series. Possibly some of the late VW38s had stamped fenders too.
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1973 1303S w sunroof Click to view image
1978 1303 convertible (sold)Click to view image
1966 1300 RIPClick to view image

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[Undis]