Jules wrote:
On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:10:58 -0800, Nonny wrote:

According to the book, "Small Wonder," the beetle was designed by
Dr. Porsche

I believe he "borrowed" a lot of the design from Tatra, though.

And in 1961 VW paid Tatra 3 million DM for that use.

IMHO, if there's any secret
to VW's beetle, it was that they got lots and lots of feedback from
owners bringing the car in with the little glitches.

I don't think it was even that - they just kept the design
mechanically simple and made it easy to swap parts out when needed.

Yep. Ferdinand Porsche and Ed Heinemann would have gotten along--simplify
and add lightness,.


Re. windows, I think the rear split-screen ones were the earliest
ones - in the 50s they dropped the split, and soon after that made
the rear window a lot bigger.

cheers

Jules