| [ Total Views: 681 | Total Replies: 15 | Thread Id: 4968 ] |
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 SKEWtYpe3
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 03:02 AM |
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who is?
who is ivan hurst, refresh my history please so i know who i am incarnating
i wanna b the guy that drew the first type 3 !!!!!!!!!!!!
make me him please boss guys
(reading that i think i am hitting sleep depravation-goodngiht)
ZZZzzzZZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZ
(We need a sleeping emoticon admins !)
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KruizinKombi
A.k.a.: Col
Bishop of Volkswagenism
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 07:30 AM |
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You may have to wait some more Skewy. It will give you something to aspire to! :P
Kruizin Kol
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 vw54
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 07:35 AM |
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Ivan
Was a pommy n save VW
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kombikim
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 07:58 AM |
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he was the good guy that after the war saw the future in VW & got the factory up & running again after Rootes Group (Hillman Humber Subeam
Commer) investigated the beetle & told the British Govt -'tis crap, not worth having-don't want it! He was a very humble , hard working
guy with much foresight
[Edited on 3-4-2003 by kombikim] |
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Spook
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 09:04 AM |
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VW was offered to Ford as well, but they said it wasn't worth a damn.
Not bad for the only car to out produce the model T.
Well my friends are gone & my hair is grey, I ache in the places where I used to play.
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SKEWtYpe3
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 11:59 AM |
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thanks boys and girls, now u mention it the story does sound familiar, now i know the guy behind the story
Silly americans, its not worth a dime they say, but it is was soon to embaraase them !
heheheeheheee
:bounce
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Phil74Camper
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 12:49 PM |
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When the Germans were defeated in May 1945 and World War 2 in Europe was ended, Germany was divided into four zones. The Russians, The British, the
Americans and the French all got a sector. The city of Berlin was also divided up that way.
The VW plant at Wolfsburg was in the British sector, not far from the border of the Russian sector (which later became East Germany). Therefore, the
town, factory and surrounding district was occupied by a British military force. The commander of the region was a Colonel Radclyffe. He appointed one
of his majors, Major Ivan Hirst, to take control of the VW factory.
It was in ruins. It had been mercilessly bombed by the allies, and much of the roof was destroyed. Many of the machines and presses were wrecked.
However there was enough left to be able to use the works as a repair depot for British military vehicles. Refugees began to stream into the town to
look for work and food, and many of them found work at the factory. Some VWs were assembled from leftover parts, and allocated to the British
military. Major Hirst liked what he saw and oversaw the gradual repair of the plant's manufacturing machines. The presses and foundries were
restarted. The 1,000th VW was built by March 1946, and the 10,000th by 1948.
It wasn't until 1948 that the British military withdrew from the area. It was at this stage that the plant was offered to various British,
American and Australian car companies, who all turned it down. In the end, a German board of control led by Heinz Nordhoff was given control, with
ownership of the works split between the local state of Lower Saxony and the new West German government.
So Major Hirst was the man responsible for restarting the VW factory from the wreckage of World War 2. He could easily have dismantled the whole
thing, but thankfully he didn't! He returned to England in 1948, remained in the army for a few years before working in the public sector until
his retirement in the 1970s. He attended numerous VW shows in the UK over the years, particularly VW Action. He passed away a couple of years ago.
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SKEWtYpe3
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 01:01 PM |
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thanks Phil !
kinda cool story !
:bounce
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Andy
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 02:04 PM |
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Just think, we could all have been restoring Morris minor's and Commer vans instead!!!
:jesus
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kafer70
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| posted on April 4th, 2003 at 08:47 PM |
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who is
If you have or get a copy of the( i think) Feb issue of VW Trends there is a story on Ivan... interesting reading. |
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SKEWtYpe3
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| posted on April 5th, 2003 at 01:33 AM |
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thansk for the info folks !
cheers
:bounce
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silver
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| posted on April 5th, 2003 at 09:21 AM |
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Hmm, slammed Commer Vans????
Keeping it real !
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vw54
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| posted on April 5th, 2003 at 07:49 PM |
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NO bluddiee way MAteee as the poms would say
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Just think, we could all have been restoring Morris minor's and Commer vans instead!!!
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OvalGlen
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| posted on April 5th, 2003 at 10:49 PM |
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when first saw his name come up on this forum I thought he must have been some " after market accessory dude "
( You know Hurst shifter )
Of course I know better Now.
Another interesting chapter in VW history is the
start up of the American market, just about got in " through the back door".
The first push to move VW in USA was dismal.
Regards,Glenn>
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Kafer Lover
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| posted on April 6th, 2003 at 03:12 PM |
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spook, I believe the golf has now overtaken the beetle in numbers produced.:o
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geodon
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| posted on April 6th, 2003 at 06:33 PM |
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There was someone who wanted it!
The Russians!!
"It's simple!" they said, "just re-align the border & we'll give it to the Ostis!"
By that time the cold war was starting & the poms gave them the "V" sign but it didn't stand for victory!
Just as well, the beetles would have ended up being 2 stroke & made of compressed paper!
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Phil74Camper
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| posted on April 7th, 2003 at 03:17 PM |
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Kafer Lover - you're right, it has. The Golf passed 21,250,000 - something last year and VW put out a press release at the time. I can't
find it online but it was published in the Club Veedub magazine.
The Golf cabrio also passed the Beetle cabrio, but that was a few years ago now.
The Corolla is ahead of both, but that's another argument (bastards). Same with the Ford F-series truck - sales of that are way over 26 million.
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70AutoStik
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| posted on April 7th, 2003 at 09:27 PM |
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Andy:
Um, no, I wouldn't. I fell in love with the flat-four aircooled engine (thank you Franz Xavier Reimspiess.) I'd probably be doing old
british bikes...
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whatnow
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| posted on April 8th, 2003 at 12:18 PM |
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morris minors and commer vans...
morris minors yes. just before i got my first beetle i asked my aunt if she still had her morris and if she was willing to part with it (owned by her
since new or nearly new) but she had given it away 6 months before so i nearly did end up playing with morris's. as for commer vans no thanks,
but a bongo van possibly. you can't tell me they aren't kind of cool.
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Tazzielittle
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| posted on April 8th, 2003 at 01:28 PM |
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More info
Major Ivan Hirst, the British Army officer responsible for getting the Volkswagen factory running again after World War II in what is now Wolfsburg,
Germany, died March 10 at his home near Marsden, in Yorkshire, England. He was 84.
Without his efforts, Volkswagen probably could never have shifted from its failed dream of producing a people's car for the Third Reich into the
economic powerhouse that built the Beetle, the symbol of German recovery.
"Anyone who drives a VW owes a lot to Major Hirst," said Ryan Lee Price, editor of VW Trends magazine, a publication for Beetle owners.
Ivan Hirst was born March 4, 1916, in Saddleworth, England. He studied at the University of Manchester and worked for a time in his family's
optical instrument business.
He turned a youthful interest in motor vehicles into an assignment in the tank repair service for the British Army during the war.
Part of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, he was evacuated at Dunkirk after the fall of France in 1940.
Later transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he returned to Europe as head of a tank repair group in Brussels.
It was from there that he was ordered in August 1945 to the former "Strength Through Joy" City, a sprawling forced-labor factory between
Berlin and Hanover. The city was soon renamed Wolfsburg.
Captured by the Americans, the mile-long, bombed-out plant Hitler had built was then turned over to the British.
The plant's last wartime products were parts for V-1 rocket bombs and stoves for soldiers on the Eastern front. The work was done by about 15,000
slave laborers, prisoners of war and others.
Sent to the plant without orders, Major Hirst found the workers still there and on his own initiative decided to use them. In his repair and motor
pool service, he found fearful ex-Nazi administrators, refugees from the Soviet sector 15 miles to the east and former slave laborers mingled
suspiciously in an economy where the prime currency was American cigarettes.
The slave laborers were soon sent home.
Major Hirst recalled in a 1962 magazine article that he and his commanding officer, Col. Michael McEvoy, who had driven an early version of the
Volkswagen in 1938, spray-painted army green one of the few Beetles around and drove it to their local headquarters.
In September 1945 the two officers persuaded the British military to place an order for 20,000 vehicles to serve local troops and officials.
Without that order the machinery in the plant would probably have been disbursed among the occupying powers and the factory shut forever.
Major Hirst scrounged steel and other rare materials to keep the plant going.
By 1946, 8,000 workers were producing 1,000 vehicles a month.
In January 1949, Major Hirst helped recruit Heinrich Nordoff to take over management of the company, and he led VW until 1968.
Major Hirst left in August 1949 when the company was set up as a trust run by the new West German government.
Mr. Nordhoff later said that "by one of the ironic jokes history is sometimes tempted to produce, it was the occupation powers who brought
Hitler's dream into reality."
In another twist of fate, after 1945 the British motor industry proceeded to decline while the German automobile industry that Major Hirst helped
revive flourished, leading the so-called German economic miracle of the 1950's.
Sir William Rootes, a longtime leader of the British auto industry, told Major Hirst his factory would collapse within two years. A formal engineering
evaluation of the Volkswagen undertaken by the British military also found little potential, declaring "the vehicle does not meet the fundamental
technical requirements of a motorcar."
"It is quite unattractive to the average motorcar buyer, is too ugly and too noisy," he continued, then added famously, "If you think
you're going to build cars in this place, you're a bloody fool, young man."
"It was by no means a perfect car," acknowledged Major Hirst in a 1999 BBC interview, "But in its time it was a damn good little
car."
In 1972, the original Beetle surpassed the Model T as the most- produced car ever; to date, about 22 million have been made and limited production
continues in Puebla, Mexico.
William Bowman of St. Louis, a collector of old Volkswagens, was one of a group of Beetle fans who visited Major Hirst last summer.
"He was sharp as a tack and had wonderful stories," Mr. Bowman recalled of an evening spent with the major in a pub in Marsden.
"He couldn't understand why we thought what he had done was such a big deal," Mr. Bowman said.
A familiar figure at the pub, with his clipped white mustache, ascot and pipe, Major Hirst reminisced until nearly midnight.
After leaving the army, Major Hirst worked for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris |
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