History of the Classiest Volkswagen
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Now we come to the year 1885 and the brothers Daimler and Karl Benz are on holiday in the south of Italy. Being respectable gentlemen they went to visit the archeological site at Pompeii (This was, at the time, a very gentleman-like thing to do). While they were at the site they decided to have a go at doing some digging (This was not such a gentleman-like thing to do but these gentlemen were also very adventurous).

While they were digging they came across what looked like the shell of a giant beetle. It even looked a bit like the steam powered vehicle built at the start of the century.

Even though they knew that it was a very un-gentlemen like thing to do, they took this 'Beetle' home with them. Once they had got it home they finished wiping all of the excess ash off. This 'Beetle' had wheels!

It is widely believed that Daimler came up with the idea first, while sitting at home in his study. But we have it on good authority from a source that wished to remain anonymous, that both Daimler and Karl came up with the idea at the same time each in their own private studies.

The idea was as follows. Daimler and Karl form a business to market these cars. They would think up many new and exciting designs. And the best thing of all, they would not run on steam! They would use an internal combustion engine that would run smoother and better that any ever built! The details of how to make this engine had already been worked out by Karl with the help of Daimler. What they are not often quoted as saying is that they both decided to not use the design of the 'Pompeii Beetle', as they now fondly referred to it as so that no one could say that they had seen that in the Mt Vesuvius archeological dig.

Within the next decade or so, the German based business Daimler Benz (as the business was called) was the biggest car company in the world. There were many other smaller companies around by now as many others had taken the idea as an opportunity for themselves to make a bit of money.

As a scandal now would simply ruin Daimler Benz, they decided to throw out the 'Pompeii Beetle' so as no 'lost' employee would walk in on a car never released. And being top of the top, there were plenty of people whose main ambition was to uncover just such a scandal.