Volkswagen: History, Landmark Models and Ownership

Volkswagen at a glance

Volkswagen is a German carmaker headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, and the core brand of Volkswagen AG, the parent company of the Volkswagen Group. Key facts as of October 2026:

1934–1945: the people's car project and the war economy

Volkswagen began as a state project of Nazi Germany: Adolf Hitler promoted an affordable car from 1934, Ferdinand Porsche received the development contract that year, and on 28 May 1937 the German Labour Front (DAF) founded the company that would build it. In 1938 it was renamed Volkswagenwerk GmbH.

The car was sold through the Labour Front's "Strength Through Joy" (KdF) organisation, so it was called the KdF-Wagen. Presented in 1938 at a price of 990 Reichsmarks, it could only be bought through a savings scheme: buyers stuck 5-Reichsmark stamps into savings books, and more than 330,000 people signed up. The rear-engined, air-cooled saloon with its rounded body was already fixed in design, yet according to Volkswagen only 630 were completed before the war ended, and not one of the savers received a car.

The foundation stone of the factory near Fallersleben was laid on 26 May 1938, together with a new town for its workers, the "City of the KdF-Wagen", renamed Wolfsburg after the war. From 1939 the plant served the war economy instead. It built the Kübelwagen, the amphibious Schwimmwagen and munitions.

Forced labour at the Volkswagen plant

Forced labour is a documented part of Volkswagen's history. Historians estimate that up to 20,000 people were forced to work at the factory between 1940 and 1945, among them prisoners of war, civilians deported from Poland and the Soviet Union (USSR), and concentration camp prisoners held in camps on the site from 1942. By 1944 forced labourers made up the majority of the workforce, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Volkswagen commissioned the historian Hans Mommsen in 1986 to research this period independently; his study appeared in 1996. In 1991 the company set up a fund for former forced labourers, and since 1999 a memorial in a former air-raid bunker on the factory premises in Wolfsburg has documented their fate.

1945–1960s: British control and the Beetle boom

After the war the British Army ran the factory and restarted civilian production in a plant that had been working for the armed forces. The British Military Government took over the plant as trustee in June 1945. On 22 August 1945 Major Ivan Hirst, the senior British officer in charge, secured an order for 20,000 saloons for the occupation authorities, and series production of the Type 1 began in late December 1945.

Output stayed at around 1,000 cars a month in 1946 and 1947. Exports started in October 1947. Heinrich Nordhoff took charge on 1 January 1948, and in October 1949 the British handed Volkswagenwerk GmbH back to German control, as a trust under the West German federal government and the state of Lower Saxony.

Nordhoff built the business on one design. The Type 2 Transporter van joined the Beetle in 1950, the one-millionth Beetle was built in 1955 and the Karmann Ghia coupé followed the same year. Exports to the United States grew from the 1950s; from 1959 the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach ran the plain-spoken advertising campaign that made the car familiar there.

On 22 August 1960 the company became a stock corporation, Volkswagenwerk AG, and about 60% of its shares were sold to the public. The larger Type 3 arrived in 1961.

1964–1990: Audi, the Golf and the water-cooled generation

Volkswagen's survival beyond the air-cooled Beetle came through Auto Union, the forerunner of today's Audi, which it acquired in 1964–1965, followed by NSU in 1969. Auto Union brought front-wheel-drive and water-cooled engine know-how that the Beetle range lacked.

The Beetle itself kept selling. On 17 February 1972 the 15,007,034th car was built, passing the production total of the Ford Model T, and special editions such as the Jeans Bug kept the familiar shape fresh in showrooms. The last Beetle saloon made in Germany left the Emden plant in 1978.

The new generation arrived quickly:

• Passat (1973): a mid-size car sharing its platform with the Audi 80.
• Scirocco (1974): a front-wheel-drive coupé.
• Golf (1974): a hatchback with a transverse water-cooled engine and front-wheel drive.
• Polo (1975): a smaller car positioned below the Golf.

The Golf, launched in 1974, became the company's core model, and its layout became the norm for small family cars. The sporty Golf GTI followed in 1976. In 1985 Volkswagenwerk AG took its current name, Volkswagen AG.

1986–2015: building a multi-brand group

From the mid-1980s Volkswagen turned itself into a group of brands by buying other carmakers. It took a majority of the Spanish maker SEAT in 1986 and full ownership in 1990, bought into the Czech manufacturer Škoda in 1991 and owned it fully by 2000.

In 1998 the group added three luxury names, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. Truck makers Scania (2008) and MAN (2011) were later combined under Traton, while the Ducati motorcycle brand and the full ownership of Porsche AG followed in 2012. The Touareg, Volkswagen's first large SUV, arrived in 2002 and the Tiguan in 2007, taking the brand into the SUV market.

The Golf platform also carried much of the range. The Volkswagen Golf reached its eighth generation (Mk8) in 2019, and its total production is usually quoted as more than 37 million.

The 2015 emissions scandal

The emissions scandal, often called Dieselgate, broke in September 2015, when it emerged that Volkswagen had fitted diesel cars with software that detected laboratory tests and reduced nitrogen oxide emissions only during them. Road tests by researchers at West Virginia University for the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) in 2014 had first shown the gap between test and road results.

On 18 September 2015 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation covering about 482,000 cars with 2.0 TDI diesel engines from model years 2009–2015 sold in the United States. Worldwide figures differ by source: Volkswagen put the number of affected vehicles at about 11 million, while other accounts speak of more than 10 million recalled.

Recalls, settlements and prosecutions followed. Chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned within days. Volkswagen pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the United States in 2017, and in 2018 German prosecutors imposed a fine usually quoted as €1 billion.

Technology and electrification: the ID. family

Volkswagen's electric era rests on the ID. family of battery-electric cars, built on the dedicated MEB platform and introduced in the years after the scandal. The ID.3 compact hatchback was unveiled in 2019 as the first MEB model, with production at Zwickau in Germany; it was followed by the ID.4 SUV in 2020, the ID. Buzz van in 2022 and the ID.7 in 2023.

The ID.3 launch in September 2019 also introduced a flat, two-dimensional version of the VW logo, the V above the W inside a circle, which the brand now uses across its range. Earlier redesign dates are reported inconsistently, so they are left out here.

According to group figures published on 20 January 2026, Volkswagen Group delivered 983,100 battery-electric vehicles in 2025, or 10.9% of all deliveries.

Volkswagen timeline

These are the dated milestones of Volkswagen history, from the first design contract to the ID. era.

Landmark models

Five models shaped Volkswagen's history more than any others: the Beetle, the Transporter, the Golf, the Passat and the Polo, with the ID.3 opening the electric era.

The Beetle (Type 1) was built in Mexico for 25 years after German production ended. When the last car left the Puebla plant on 30 July 2003, 21,529,464 had been built. The Transporter began in 1950 and grew into a separate van and minibus line.

The Passat, first sold in 1973, has run through several generations, each known by a B code, such as the eighth-generation Passat (B8). The Volkswagen Polo has covered the small-car class since 1975. Larger cars arrived later, and the second-generation Touareg carried the brand's large-SUV line forward from the original 2002 model.

Current model line-up

As of October 2026, Volkswagen's passenger car range in Germany is built around the Polo, Golf, Tiguan and Passat, alongside a growing ID. electric family. The years show when each nameplate entered production.

Volkswagen's German website also lists new ID. Cross and ID. Tiguan models and an ID. Polo announced as coming soon. The full range, including commercial vehicles, is in the catalogue of all Volkswagen models.

Ownership and production today

Volkswagen AG is controlled by Porsche SE, the holding company of the Porsche and Piëch families, which held 53.3% of the voting rights at 31 December 2025. The state of Lower Saxony held 20.0% and Qatar Holding 17.0%, with 9.7% of voting shares in free float, according to the group's 2025 annual report.

Lower Saxony's position is protected by a special federal statute, the Volkswagen Law, which gives the state a blocking minority on major decisions. The European Court of Justice ruled against the original version in 2007; Germany rewrote it, and the revised law stood.

Production is spread across Wolfsburg, Emden and Zwickau in Germany, Pamplona in Spain, Puebla in Mexico and further plants and joint ventures in China, South America and South Africa. The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand alone delivered 4,730,600 vehicles in 2025.

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