It was on this day in 1972 that VW officially proclaimed its popular Beetle model as the best-selling vehicle in history.

When the 15,007,034th Beetle rolled off the production line in Wolfsburg, it had finally superseded the legendary Ford Model T which had become the first vehicle to pass the 15 million mark some 45 years earlier.

The Beetle was originally designed by Ferdinand Porsche after he was tasked by German leader, Adolf Hitler, to come up with a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country’s new road network in 1938.

Before production eventually ended in June 2003, the Beetle had achieved over 21.5 million units sold but had already been overtaken by the Toyota Corolla as the world’s best-selling car in 1997.

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