Christian Figenschou
They’re the stuff of dreams, nightmares, aspirations and obsessions, freedom and empowerment; of all the inventions of the past 100 years, the motor car best captures the essence of the 20th century.
The first self-propelled wagons were described as long ago as the 17th century, and the 19th century saw steam-powered carriages, but it was the invention of the internal combustion engine in the closing years of the 1900s that paved the way for the emergence of the modern automobile.
Like most new inventions, the first cars were the playthings of the rich. But then Henry Ford introduced the world to mass production with his Model T in 1908 and suddenly the motor car became accessible to working folk. Mass production became possible as a result of two inventions by Ford – the continuous assembly line and spray painting. Until Ford sped the process up, painting cars was the single most time- consuming part of their assembly, and it took up to two weeks to completely paint a car.
The Model T made America mobile, and gave ordinary Americans access to a freedom they had never known before. Affordable transport also gave the American economy a massive boost.
Meanwhile, in Europe, private cars remained the preserve of the wealthy, until the 1930s. However, a celebrated automotive engineer, Ferdinand Porsche, had a dream to provide Germans with an affordable small car of their own. Porsche came up against resistance from the established motor manufacturers but, fortunately for him, a people’s car was also a pet ambition of Germany’s new leader, Adolf Hitler.
With official Nazi support, Porsche’s people’s car moved ahead in leaps and bounds to the stage where a massive factory was built to produce the car. But, unfortunately for Porsche, Hitler had grander plans, and the outbreak of World War II in 1939 saw the new factory being put to use in support of the German military effort before any cars had been built.
It wasn’t until British engineers took over the bombed-out factory in 1945 that the Volkswagen went into production. A handful of cars was built that year, followed by a few thousand in 1946 and 1947. Then, the factory was handed back over to German control in 1948, and the rest is history.
The Volkswagen did for Germans and other Europeans in the 1950s what the Model T Ford did for Americans in the 1910s, and the Beetle played no small part in post-war Germany’s “economic miracle”. Porsche barely lived to see his dream realised, but his aim of producing a small, affordable car that had all the engineering features of larger, more expensive cars set the tone for all small cars built since then.
The post-war years have seen affordable cars become accessible to people all over the world, and the numbers of manufacturers, models and variations available have proliferated wildly.
And now, in the closing days of the century of the car, a jury of 132 motoring journalists from 32 countries around the world has selected the car of the century from a shortlist of 27 cars. Public votes via a website drew up a list of 200 cars, which was then whittled down to 100 and, early in December, the 27 finalists.
The Model T Ford – the official car of the century – was announced at a glittering event in Las Vegas on the weekend of December 17.
Although this is the most widely canvassed selection of a car of the century, there have been previous attempts. In 1995, a panel of 100 international motoring journalists voted the Volkswagen Beetle as the car of the century. A couple of years later a British motoring magazine polled its readers and they selected a British car as car of the century: the Mini. Both the Mini and the Beetle are legitimate contenders for the title and both were among the finalists.
As already mentioned, the Beetle was the first small car to feature the levels of design and engineering found in more expensive cars.
When it was designed, in the 1930s, large cars were affordable only to the wealthy elite, while small cars were little more than four-wheeled motorcycles. Despite its quirky, individualistic design, the Beetle set the standard for small car design that still applies today. The Beetle still holds the record for the most cars produced off a single design, and it is still built in Mexico to this day, with more than 21- million Bugs having hit the roads since production started in 1946.
The Mini, designed by legendary British designer Sir Alec Issigonis, took the Porsche idea a step further. Like the Beetle, it has outlived the cars introduced to replace it, and it was put back into production after the Mini Metro was withdrawn. The Mini makes a worthy contender for car of the century by virtue of the fact that it was the first car to use the transverse-engined front-wheel drive layout that is now universal in small and medium car design. Because of this, the Mini can be said to have had an even greater influence on car design than the Beetle.
A few other cars in the finalists’ list bear examination: Three cars bearing the name of car maker Andr Citrn were among the finalists. The first was the “Traction- Avant” (front-drive). When it first appeared in 1934, it was among the first mass-produced front-wheel drive cars, and was so loaded with technological advancements that it was 30 years ahead of its time, and it remained in production until 1957.
By the time the rest of the world’s motor manufacturers had begun to catch up in the 1950s, Citrn had taken another leap ahead with its DS19 of 1955. The DS19, apart from its hydro-pneumatic suspension system, was the first car to make extensive use of plastic and aluminium body panels. Plastics came into widespread use in car bodies in the 1980s.
Aluminium has yet to be widely adopted in car bodywork. The DS was also the first production car to use disc brakes.
Another finalist is the Willy’s Jeep of World War II. Jeeps are still built today, albeit to a modernised design, and this wartime workhorse spawned a new market for 4x4s.
There were many more contenders, although most are sports cars and not accessible to the masses, and there is no space here to examine all.
So what is my choice for car of the century?
There is no doubt in my mind: it has to be the Volks- wagen Beetle.