The Karmann Ghia

The VW Karmann Ghia (Type 14) is the name of an automobile from Volkswagen, which was built by Karmann in Osnabrück. A total of 443 466 vehicles counting 362,585 coupes and 80,881 convertibles which were sold between 1955 and 1974. The technology of the Karmann Ghia Type 14 was largely identical to the Volkswagen Beetle from a few details.
The Type 14 is often referred as the small Karmann-Ghia because Volkswagen had built the Karmann GhiaType 34 from 1961 to 1969, a coupe which was based on the larger type 3 (VW 1500/1600). However, there was even a Karmann Ghia Type TC (for Touring Coupe, type 145) which was built at the only Karmann plant in São Bernardo do Campo in Brazil.

The body line of the Karmann Ghia had several creators, whose shares can not be clearly identified today.
Italian born Luigi Segre, a mechanical engineer of Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin was the contact man for Karmann and a long time it was assumed that he was the designer of the Karmann-Ghia.

The prototype of VW Karmann Ghia Type 14 was desgned by Felice Mario Boano and his son Gian Paolo. The basis of their work was a prototype built by Ghia for Chrysler in the United States whose design is derived in turn from the chief designer of the U.S. company, Virgil Exner.

Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Type 14 Convertible

The serial production of the Type 14 began in 1955 and the car was a great success.
Over 30,000 vehicles were annually produced in the years from 1964-1970 including 271 736 cars which were sold in the United States. Eventhough the car looks indeed like a sports car, it was with its 30 hp and 118 km / h top speed far away from sporting records.
In the years from 1962 to 1972,  23,500 coupes and 176 convertibles of a modified Type 14 version with different Bumpers and taillicghts were built at the São Bernardo do Campo plant near São Paulo.
In 1970 they were manufactured with additional front vent windows. In the years 1970 to 1976 also 18,119 units of the Karmann Ghia TC Type 145 were built only as a coupe in the same plant.

The Volkswagen Beetle

Stolen Volkswagen Beetle - The National Archives UK 

The Volkswagen Beetle or Bug, officially called the Volkswagen Type 1, is an economy car produced by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen, now Volkswagen Group which was built from 1938 to 2003.

The car was conceived as a cheap simple car, and was designed by Ferdinand Porsche.

With over 21 million manufactured in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single design platform, worldwide.

The Beetle was only produced in significant numbers after 1945, when the model was internally designated the Volkswagen Type 1, and marketed simply as the "Volkswagen". Later models were designated VW 1200, VW 1300, VW 1500, VW 1302 or VW 1303, the former three indicating engine displacement and the latter two being derived from the type number and not indicative of engine capacity. Since the early sixties the model became widely known as the "Käfer" in its home country after it had been successfully exported to the U.S. and was later marketed after the "Herbie" movies as such in Germany, and as the "Volkswagen Beetle" in other countries.

In the 1950s, the Beetle was more comfortable and powerful than most European small cars, having been designed for sustained high speed on the Autobahn. It remained a top seller in the U.S., owing much of its success to high build-quality and innovative advertising, ultimately giving rise to variants, including the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and the Volkswagen Type 2 bus.
The Beetle had marked a significant trend led by Volkswagen whereby the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive layout had increased continental Western Europe's car production until 1956. The 1948 Citroën 2CV and other European models marked a later trend to front-wheel drive in the European small car market, a trend that would come to dominate that market. 

In 1974, Volkswagen's own front-wheel drive Golf  model succeeded the Beetle. In 1998, Volkswagen  introduced the "New Beetle", built on the Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1.