Ask for It by Name!

For a car brand whose success has often been viewed as the triumph of a spunky underdog, Volkswagen’s most impressive accomplishment may be overcoming just about the worst origin imaginable.

Ferdinand Porsche was a highly respected automobile designer in 1933 when he was called to a meeting with Adolf Hitler, who had recently attained power in Germany. Hitler had a plan to solidify his support among the German people by promising them a low-priced, durable German-made car, the automotive equivalent of “a chicken in every pot.” Hitler not only laid out precise requirements for the car in his meeting with Porsche, but also insisted that the car be sold for under 1,000 Marks (about $250 at that time). And Hitler wanted Porsche to organize and oversee the project.

Porsche had no objection to the idea of a small, mass-produced car in itself. He had even produced two prototypes of such a vehicle several years earlier. It was the price that seemed impossible — even Henry Ford, the genius behind the mass production of cars, had never built a car he could sell for less than twice that price.

Within months, however, Porsche realized that Hitler’s impractical plan was an order, not a suggestion. Hitler began giving speeches in which he promised his followers that his regime would soon make the Volkswagen (literally, “Peoples’ Car”) available to every German citizen. So Porsche spent the next few years developing prototypes of the “Volkswagen” and gearing up production at a factory in Wolfsburg. Ironically, by 1939 Hitler’s appetite for war scuttled his dream of the Volkswagen. With the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, production at the Wolfsburg plant was switched to military vehicles, and the first Volkswagen “Beetle” (of which more than 21 million were eventually sold) was not produced until after the war.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s an all-terrain vehicle that will bring out your inner Lewis & Clark and take you to the top of life’s mountains. Or it’s a gas-guzzling behemoth too wide for the road that menaces anyone driving a normal car. Most vehicles are largely a matter of personal taste or utilitarian choice, but the Hummer is an in-your-face social statement that inspires either longing looks of envy or muttered curses of annoyance.

Much of the Hummer’s appeal, to those who find it appealing, comes from its military lineage, as does its name. The original “H-1″ Hummer was simply a civilian version of the U.S. military’s High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle, made famous during the first Gulf War in 1991 and better known in the military as the “Humvee.” The more recent “H-2″ and “H-3″ Hummers, produced by General Motors (who bought the original Humvee manufacturer), are tamed-down, more consumer-oriented versions (gas engine instead of diesel, Bose stereo, etc.), with little in common with the H-1.