national library of australia | Speed Track Tales

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Beetle, KDF, national library of australia, volkswagen

A rare outbreak of moment of personal indulgence.. this is nearly my 100th blog after all

Photo – KDF Wagen

Whilst busy trawling through the vast ocean rich with articles abut the International Six Days’ Trial in the archive of the National Library of Australia’s interwar years newspapers, sat alongside a key report on the ISDT 1938 I stumbled onto an article on the development in Germany under the direction of a well known despot the production of a new car for the citizens of Germany one that would cost only the equivalent of the average workers salary for 20 weeks. In addition this car would be built in a factory run by the state in direct competition to the private sector who had failed to take up the design challenge… Unlike however the ill-fated efforts at state car building in Britain or the Meridan co-operative at the end of our bike indutry. From this humble beginning came one of the worlds greatest cars and one of the worlds largest and advanced automotive companies.

As a help to any other VW Beetle fans or researchers who stumble onto this blog I have added below some of the treasure of articles about the arrival of the KDF Wagen and its liberation at the end of the war.

“PEOPLE’S CAR

Huge German Factory BRIEF DETAILS

If things turn out according to Herr Hitler’s programme to build for the German people, in the next few years, millions of low priced motor cars at the huge Government factory now being erected in Brunswick, the people of that country will be able to buy a new car through the Labour Front at the equivalent of 5/ a week, plus about 1 / a week for insurance

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archives, Australia, british library, national library of australia, newspaper, trove

Whilst recovering the history of the ISDT, sometimes from oblivion, much of what happened prior to the war is no longer accessible via living memory. Most of the pre-war racers and the event supporters have sadly left our company over the last 10-30 years. Whilst we may still have those copies of the old magazines ‘the Motor Cycle‘ and ‘Motor Cycling‘ neither are published any longer and so its a case of trawling old archives and eBay auctions to find any references to the ISDT which is often fraught with difficulty and significant cost. These magazines tell us the story from the enthusiasts point of view but it’s also clear the International was a major sporting man familiar with many people with little active interest in the events and it is intersting to see how it was perceived then by the man in the street to compare to the sports relative anonymity today. A surprisingly great source for this kind of material is the daily national and regional newspapers of the time.

image – scanned from the Courier – Mail, from Brisbane Queensland Australia 10th May 1937 ISDT 1937

the image of the cycling contraption is described in its caption as this: FAMILY CVCLE.— An unusual machine, devised by a resident of Kent, England, to solve the transport problem for five people.

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