Designed in 1938 (although this model is from 1959), Ferdinand Porsche's Volkswagen Type 1 Sedan, is one of many automobile related design objects—including cars and car parts, architectural models, films, photographs, posters, paintings, and sculptures—in MoMA's current exhibition, 'Automania,' on view through 2021. We highly recommend the exhibition catalog, which released this week! In it, the editors describe the origin of this iconic car: "'A nation is no longer judged by the length of its railways but by the length of its highways,' Adolf Hitler declared in a speech at the Berlin Motor Show in 1933. An admirer of Henry Ford as much for his innovation in assembly-line production as for his anti-Semitic proclivities, the newly installed chancellor envisioned Germany's future paved with asphalt and abounding with private automobiles. This plan required a car affordable to the middle and lower classes, for whom car ownership had up until then been a financial impossibility. Hitler tasked German automakers with producing a vehicle capable of accommodating four people and of reaching a speed of 62 miles per hour. This 'Volkswagen,' or 'people's car,' would be priced below one thousand Reichsmarks—an unheard-of low sum equivalent to about $8000 today. The result was the Volkswagen Type 1 Sedan, a 1600-pound, steel-bodied vehicle designed by the automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche that zipped along thanks to a 24-horsepower, rear-mounted engine… Better known today as the Beetle, the Type 1 went on to become the best-selling automobile of all time in 1972, surpassing Ford's Model T, which was the first mass-produced vehicle to achieve widespread popularity…" Read more about the book via linkinbio. Edited by @julietkinchin Text by Paul Galloway, @gardnerae & Juliet Kinchin. Published by @themuseumofmodernart #automania #volkswagen #volkswagenbug #volkswagenbeetle #volkswagentype1 #cars #industrialdesign #cardesign https://www.instagram.com/p/CRmGdQ6sWQY/?utm_medium=tumblr
