The 2020 Hyundai Elantra will be a frugal compact car when it goes on sale later this year. The EPA last week said that Hyundai's compact sedan will return estimated 31 mpg city, 41 highway, 35 combined with the addition of a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) to the Elantra lineup. Driving in the Big Apple could take a big bite out of wallets soon. 3,750. It leaves the Chevy Bolt EV without full federal incentives against rival electric cars. The Tail of the Dragon sits at, or near, the top of any list of great driving roads in America. This 11-mile ribbon of U.S. Highway 129 between Tennessee and North Carolina entices enthusiasts with more than 300 turns and 1,000 feet of elevation change. Unfortunately, it also attracts Harley-Davidson riders out for a cruise, campers trundling along, and bicycle riders peddling away among the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains. Roborace has plans to take humans out of the cockpit in a futuristic machine-versus-machine race series, but before that happens, it's putting its Robocars in the hands of people鈥攓uite literally. The McLaren Senna is a wild, track-focused hypercar. That much is clear.
Famous last words from Lord Rootes. The car by 1945 had been an unfulfilled promise for more than a decade as the result of developmental problems., obstacles planted by other German manufacturers jealous and worried about the Government backed interloper, and of course the war. A trendsetter it certainly was. Although initially produced in many variations by Porsche's Stuttgart industrial design firm to suit a number of potential customers. Ferdinand's dream car for the masses always had the same basic theme, that of a small, aerodynamic sedan with an engine behind the rear axle, and all independent suspension. Revolutionary ideas indeed in Germany in early VW Beetle history of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was an unacceptable format to the big German manufacturers who still believed a car should be a luxury. Porsche's first thoughts of a people's car developed soon after WW1, fell on deaf ears for more than a decade before Hitler gave the project the go ahead for the financial incentive that it demanded.
The new German Chancellor surprised the German motor industry with his speech in opening the 1933 Berlin Motor Show. A nation, Hitler said, was no longer judged by other nations by its miles of railroad track but by its miles of paved highways. He called on the manufacturers to bring prestige to Germany on the motor racing circuits and finally requested them to develop a cheap small car for the masses. On this last matter he was very serious, and as a motoring enthusiast himself and a great fan of Henry Ford he regarded the American car ownership to population ratio with some envy. The legend goes in early VW Beetle history that Porsche first met Hitler when obtaining a subsidy for Auto Union to challenge Mercedes in motor racing. 10,000's Of Extra Dollars From Home. He listened with great interest to Porsche's plans but insisted it be more economical and knocked 650 Marks off the estimated cost price. The German Automobile Industry Association was to coordinate the building of the car but because of great internal jealousy in the industry, there were immediate delays.
Nevertheless by the end of 1938 three prototypes were running and the following year Mercedes built another 30 cars for testing. These unusual hump backed cars had no back window at all, a low smooth sloping front and were powered by a four cylinder engine of one litre capacity with two banks of horizontally opposed cylinders. It was very much the forerunner of the air cooled VW Beetle. That year Hitler grew impatient with the stalling of the rival manufacturers and a company was established to produce the Peoples Car. To raise the necessary funds, the German Labour Front Organisation, the KdF - Kraft-durch-Freude or Strength Through Joy - was called in. In early VW Beetle history, the original price had risen from 900 to 990 Marks and there were promises of 1,500,000 cars being assembled annually in the near future. At the five Marks weekly rate it would take a saver four years and seven months to meet the planned purchase price. In return the saver was promised a document of ownership. There was nothing about actually getting a car and there was no guarantee of a fixed price and no warranty was offered.
None of the savers ever got a car and it was not until 1961 that a VW Savers lawsuit was finally ended with a mutual settlement being reached. It was not until the late 1940s that the first Volkswagens managed to find their way into the hands of the private workers it was designed for. The early VW Beetle history pre war production cars went immediately to Hitler's staff while during the war the factory produced the odd looking but very effective military Kubel-wagen and its amphibious brother the Schwimmkubel. Immediate post war production was used by the Germans and their British overlords as barter materials to obtain the steel and machinery necessary to restore the badly damaged plant at Wolsburg. The air cooled VW, Volkswagen's rise to fame since WW11 is now well known. I have my own early VW Beetle history. I once owned a 1957 split window air cooled VW Beetle. The brakes left a lot to be desired and it was always a hope and pray maneuver to bring the Beetle to a stop in an emergency.
