<VV> Early VW No Corvair

[Smitty]

Smitty Says, From the book Small Wonder;  Inaugurating the 1937 Auto
Exhibition Hitler banged his fist on the speakers table and said, Either
auto makers produce this cheap car or they go out of business.  I will not
tolerate the plea, it can't be done.  That doesn't sound to me like anything
was in production at that time.  Going back a bit, in 35 three cars were
built in Porsches private garage, enabling Hitler to claim at the  35 auto
exhibition that prototypes were built for testing.  Although Hitler
continued to make noise that cars were in testing in 36, testing did not
start until October 36.  In Feb 37 at the Berlin auto show Hitler raised
hell with private industry, telling automakers, if they couldn't produce his
car they would no longer be in business.  In early 37 two groups of 30 cars
had been built for testing and all were prototypes for propaganda and
testing only.  Surprising to me that a book with so many dates, facts and
events could fail to note a milestone, but I could find no mention of when
the first production car was built in 38.  Only that it was 38.

Now that I have made it possible for some of you to rest nights, I came up
with another answer.  I recently helped sell a 64 Spyder convertible that
had the 2"wide band of chrome across the tops of the buckets and down the
sides of the seats.  I remembered who originally built the car back in the
70s and on a chance, called him.  He said very plainly that the chrome bands
came from a 62 Skylark that he junked out, and the chrome pieces were the
only thing he salvaged from it.  They may have been used on other years or
cars, but that is one positive source.