Supercars and high speed are a part of every car enthusiast’s fantasy.
They are like endangered species rare enough to keep attracting our
attention over and over again and never let us get bored with them.
Still, the best speed test proved to be the time needed for a car to
accelerate from the standing start to 100 miles per hour (160km/h),
and then to stop immediately.
Lately the marketing types of the world have been calling it brand equity,
but in the real world it's always been plain old reputation. Carmakers
don't get a good reputation just by showing up, they develop one over
years by delivering either great or lousy products, treating customers right
or like cattle and building cars people either want or ignore. Great word
of mouth is a manufacturer's best asset, while a lousy rep is almost
impossible to overcome.
Factories the world over churned out more than 21,500,000 of the
original Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle. Production began in 1938 and
ended to the tune of a mariachi band in a Mexico factory on July 30th,
2003. Eight digits worth of production took almost 65 years and to cap
off this monumental achievement, the VW Beetle was voted the fourth
most influential car of the 20th century by the Car of the Century
committee in 1999. Only the Model T, MINI, and Citroen DS were
deemed to have more impact than the Beetle.