The Almighty Beetle #1 : 無料・フリー素材/写真
The Almighty Beetle #1 / artistmac
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-継承 2.1 |
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| 説明 | You youngsters need to know that, during a good part of the 50's and 60's, Volkswagen, largely on the strength of this one car's sales figures, had over HALF of the U.S. imported car market. That's right, 52%. That left 48% for all the other foreign carmakers trying to sell here, from Renault to Austin to Volvo to Fiat to a couple of obscure Japanese makes named Toyota and Datsun, to squeeze into.Beetle sales leveled off in '69, and dropped steadily after that. The last sedans were sold here in '77, the last convertibles in '79. And once-mighty Volkswagen has never been the same, even though it tried to make lightning strike twice with the New Beetle.But the charm of the original Beetle was its simplicity. Pints, not quarts of oil. No coolant, because it was air-cooled. Did I hear you complain about inadequate interior heating in the winter!? What are you, a wimp? Go buy a Falcon and be gone!In its day, this car was the equivalent of tweed jackets with elbow patches, faded, ripped jeans and run-over dirty buck shoes -- the anti-status status symbol. Driven by college professors AND their students. Even its advertising campaign was counterculture. Devised by Doyle Dane Bernbach, it began in 1959 with the tagline "Think Small" and culminated with the classic print ad showing a Beetle with the word "Lemon" under it. You had to read the ad to find out that the car had been rejected by VW's quality control team for nothing more than a tiny scratch on the glovebox door, an endorsement of VW's commitment to sterling build quality.During the '70's, you could make money with your Beetle if you were willing to drive around with advertisements painted on it, courtesy of a company called BeetleBoards. A huge aftermarket sprang up, ready to convert your lowly Beetle to Corvair or Porsche power, or sell you a front trunk lid with a '40 Ford or Rolls-Royce grille.More than one old Volkswagen was transformed into a dune buggy during that particular mid-to-late '60's craze; there was actually a shortage of available rolling floorboards to convert.There was even a book for DIY Beetle owners: 1969's classic "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot", by John Muir and Tosh Gregg. Illustrations by Peter Aschwanden.Until recently, it continued to be built in Mexico, (most taxicabs in Mexico City were Beetles). and the van that shared its chassis, the"breadbox" Transporter, continued to be built in Brazil.You couldn't buy that kind of cachet even if you bribed Yelp.www.amazon.com/Keep-Volkswagen-Alive-Step-Step/dp/1566913101 |
| 撮影日 | 2014-09-19 09:49:58 |
| 撮影者 | artistmac |
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| カメラ | BlackBerry 9810 , Research In Motion |