er Hitler’s Third Reich, became a mainstay of popular culture through the 1960s and 1970s before being revived with an updated model in 1997.
The German car maker said the last vehicle would be made in Mexico next year, at the only factory still manufacturing the car. The company said the decision would allow it to focus on other models, including its portfolio of electric cars. Hinrich Woebcken, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, said: "The loss of the Beetle after three generations, over nearly seven decades, will evoke a host of emotions from the Beetle's many devoted fans."
At its peak it sold more than a million cars a day, powered in part by the cinema exploits of Herbie the Love Bug • and this particular picture shall forever [RE]main a [RE]minder of the 53 YEARS of my own VW memories, which as you are ALL no doubt aware by now, were turned sour forever by VW themselves in respect of the Beetle [BE]ing the People's CAR and that the customer is supposed to be KING rather than the GOD-ALMIGHTY DOLLAR !!!???
Few people were surprised when in 1993 Ferdinand Piëch became chief executive of Volkswagen, then on the brink of bankruptcy. Over the next two decades, latterly as chairman, he built the company into the largest car manufacturer in Europe by a substantial margin, rivalling Toyota for the title of largest carmaker in the world. But Piëch’s management style was not to everyone’s taste. German newspapers called him “Lord of the Manor’’; a General Motors executive once called him “quasi-psychotic’’. Aggressive, brooding and authoritarian, he ran Volkswagen like a personal fiefdom
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Added by Michael Grove at 12:38 on September 16, 2018
Within a short walking distance of Jack Pritchard's Isokan Flats
in Lawn Road, Ernö Goldfinger's 2 Willow Road was always
intended to be a family home. The Goldfingers initially wanted
to buy the site of 2 Willow Road as a way to invest some of
Ursula’s wealth in a home, and to give Ernö a chance to
demonstrate his skill and vision as an architect. Architects had fewer opportunities to design their own houses
in the 1930s than after the war, and these were mostly in the
countryside. For modern architects like Goldfinger, building
flats was a more socially conscientious exercise than
building an individual house.
Yet Goldfinger’s plans for a block of flats with studios were
initially rejected by the London County Council in 1936. He
then had to reconcile the demands of construction, space,
and social life with the guidelines from the authorities, whilst
retaining its concrete frame. The final design was then submitted
at the end of 1937, but the situation was far from resolved.…