Volkswagon Beetle: Portrait Of A Legend

Like a trip down memory lane, the stunning photographs in "Volkswagen Beetle: Portrait of a Legend" celebrate the social impact of the Beetle. From its humble beginning, to its modest restart after World War II, to its success as the best selling bar in the world, to the development of the Concept 1, the New Beetle prototype, "Volkswagen Beetle: Portrait of a Legend" tells the personal side of the Beetle story.

Impressive production photos from Volkswagen's archives, as well as many from private collections, create an unforgettable viewpoint of the Beetle legend over the years, and an exciting, occasionally melancholic study of an icon's rise to fame. The book also allows a trip around the globe: after all, the Beetle was the first true world car.

The Volkswagen Beetle is arguably the most recognized industrial product shape ever produced. But more than that, it has endured for generations, becoming a part of many families' cultural history. "Volkswagen Beetle: Portrait of a Legend" does not attempt to explain in words the reasons for the Beetle's success and appeal-the pictures themselves tell the story.

A cultural history of the Volkswagen Beetle as told through historical photographs, many never before published in the U.S. From the birth of the Beetle in wartime Germany through the development of the New Beetle prototype, Volkswagen Beetle: Portrait of a Legend celebrates a lighthearted, unusual view of the most successful automobile in history. This book is not a "how to identify your Beetle" book, nor is it a year-by-year charting of model changes. Rather, through other people's experiences of the car, it allows readers to recall their own fond memories of what it was really like to own a Beetle in its heyday.