Header
Yet the truth was, it was so expensive to make that the idea of ordinary Germans saving up for their own “Volkswagen” proved ambitious. It was only supposed to cost RM990 but actually cost RM8000 at launch!
Known as the Type 60 & later the Type 87, the Fuhrer himself laid the cornerstone at the car’s new factory in 1938 – the goal being to produce 450,000 Beetles a year. Whilst volume never reached that amount during wartime, topping 630 civilian cars by 1944, after the war the Beetle would take the world by storm, becoming the most produced car ever. This was thanks in no small part to the British getting the factory back up & running efficiently after occupation.
It makes a great subject for a model. As many vehicles ended up in the hands of the army, police & so on, rather than with civilians, it qualified us to make a Scale War Machine “Bug”. The 1:35th scale CMK kit (Ref: T35014) was released in 1999 & is moulded in a light grey plastic. The look & feel of the plastic is pretty “short-run” with some areas of simplistic moulding & heavy detail.
The principal weak point is the wheels which let down an otherwise satisfactory model kit. To combat this, we moulded the wheels from a Tamiya kit & replaced the CMK wheels with our own cast replicas.
Otherwise, we used the book by Karl Ludvigsen, “Peoples Car”, to add some additional details – this was principally the thin piping or weld seams around the body - replicated using sprue & the odd new detail made in scratch like the rear lamp.
The model was painted in a rough & hastily-applied three-tone camouflage using enamels & an Aztek airbrush. The final painting details were some heavy chipping to show wear & tear & a nasty looking bullet hole in the wind shield.