During the '50s, Volkswagen started to export
model throughout the world, in 1955 the beetle was not considered as a
survival of the WW2 but as the typical compact car it was meant to be.
Thousand of beetle were hitting the road everyday, and it was just more
than a success as they weren't able to satisfy all the demand since the
american market was conquered.
At this time the range of car VW was selling
were the beetle sedan in two version, standard (mainly sold in germany)
, the european model in the middle and the export model adapted to the
american market which was the most luxurious one with the convertible model.
This particular model wasn't built at the vw factory but was built from
the ground in Karmann's factory in Osnabruck.
The collaboration beetween the two firms is the
reflect of the friendship of the two managers of the societies, Heinz Nordhoff
at VW and Wilhelm Karmann for the osnabruck's company.
The goal of Karmann was to become a complete
car builder, and not only a subcontractor. He felt quickly that the
VW had a potentiality to become something else than a people's car, He
was certain that there was a place for a car who'd look like a distinguished
car (I don't dare to write sport'scar :) but as easy to use as the beetle.
He started to work in his own on prototypes,
at this timen Italia was THE country of this kind of cars, Alfa Romeo was
an exemple of what could be the market segment of karmann's project. For
the studies of the design he asked Ghia to work on the beetle pan, the
car should keep the maximum of the beetle's parts in order to make it really
reliable, the point was to design an elegant car for the price of a basic
one.
The first attempts were the good ones, as the
first prototypes were shown to Nordhoff he validated the project as is.
This man's prioriy was the beetle but he felt that a company couldn't survive
with only one model, even if this model was the best in the industrial
world, adding the Karmann-Ghia to the VW catalog was also a manner of thanking
W.Karmann of its collaboration since 1949.
It was the opportunity for Karmann to have the responsibility of the complete
making of a car, they had to combinate their traditional know-how with
the constraints of the modern industry, that was a risky bet but as history
shew it, they won it!
The Karmann was produced from 1956 to 1974 with
a regular upgrading of its technical features following the VW beetle's
evolution, anticipating it sometimes. At the end it was a total of 443
466 cars that were produced, 80 000 of them were converibles, and about
65% of the Karmann production was sent to USA, where it became the Pussycat
car as advertisements used to say in the 60's.
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