A Close Look At What The Volkswagen Super Bowl Commercial Actually Meant

If my quick skimming of the news-printouts from my Teletype are accurate, yesterday a musician named Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl athletic festival. Good for him! Of course, for many people, one of the most important parts of the Super Bowl is the commercials shown during the event, advertising a variety of dry goods, foodstuffs, nonparishable items, or intangible, vague services like insurance. One of these commercials was for Volkswagen, and was titled (because Super Bowl commercials get to have things like titles, being, you know, Big Deals) An American Love Story. As the name implies, this ad is very America-focused, which, for VW, means it starts, conveniently, in 1949.

Before we go any further, you should probably watch the ad:

Now when I say it conveniently starts in 1949, I think you all know what I’m getting at; the Beetle actually started development, with Ferdinand Porsche in charge, in the 1930s, and was finalized in 1938 as the KdF-Wagen, which means “strength-through-joy” in German and, of course, is absolutely laden with Nazi shit.

During the war, the factory mostly made wartime Kübelwagens and Schwimmwagens and other military vehicles, with no civilians getting any cars at all. After the war, the British took over the factory, and started producing some Beetles, mostly to get defeated Germans working again. Eventually, VW as the company we know today was formed postwar, and by 1949 they were starting to get confident enough to make a few “export” versions of the very spartan Beetle with chromed bumpers and trim, nicer upholstery, and all that sort of thing, and try to sell them outside of Germany.

So, that’s where VW’s story here starts, and why we see this man:

I’m about certain that’s supposed to be Ben Pon, a Dutch importer of Volkswagens from quite early on – in 1947 he became the first to sell VWs outside of Germany, in his native Netherlands. He’s also the man who first tried to import two VWs to America, in 1949. We know the year because VW shows us in the ad:

So this has to be Ben Pon; despite the upbeat nature of the commercial, Pon did not have an easy time with his two Beetles in America – the ad, of course, just shows one. He was unable to find interested dealers, and the story goes that he had to sell one of the Beetles for $800 just to cover what he owed the Roosevelt hotel.

For reference, that’s the real Ben Pon there, trying to unload a Beetle onto a fellow hat enthusiast. Note the opening doors, for easy entry and egress! I imagine him saying.

Later on, Pon would make more VW history with a quick, crude sketch of an imagined VW commercial vehicle that would one day become the famous VW Type 2 Microbus:

From there the commercial shows some nice shots of the Beetle looking out of place on American roads, surrounded by hulking early 1950s American cars.

There’s even a little dig at American car marketing and advertising, something that Volkswagen definitely and very famously defied with its honest, humble approach taken by the Doyle Dane Bernbach ad agency, which was one of the key parts of their success in America.

I do like this fake ad they made for a generic ’50s-looking car with a colossal grille, and the inane “Bigger & Better…than last year!” tagline, which, of course, was the opposite of how VW positioned themselves.

There’s also a shot of a Beetle in a car dealership, and I wonder if this is supposed to be Max Hoffman’s Manhattan dealership, even though the cars in it other than the Beetle appear to be American, and not the Jaguars and other European cars Hoffman specialized in. Hoffman started importing Beetles in 1950, and while he wasn’t terribly successful, he did better than Pon. By 1955 VW of America was founded, and took over US sales.

Interestingly, this Beetle seems to be the same ’49 we saw on the docks earlier, with its external horn, banana-style bumper overriders, and twist-style hood handle.

That Beetle in the dealership has been spotted by these attractive beatniks:

…which I guess shows the Beetle’s enduring appeal to youth and counterculture movements.

There’s a scene that comes up soon afterwards that really caught my attention, for reasons that will be clear in a moment. It’s this cute little scene of a dad making his Beetle “talk” to his little son by opening and closing the trunk like a mouth:

This resonated with me very directly because back in 2016 I was in a documentary about the Beetle, and I did this exact same thing with my kid, Otto:

What are the odds of that? Did some ad agency see this clip and get inspired, or am I being delusional?

The scenes of people cramming into what appears to be a blue ’63 Beetle are, of course, based on real attempts to cram people into Beetles, which I’ve seen records that claim an improbable-sounding 57 and some that claim a still-impressive but more likely 20.

There’s scenes of people hitchhiking and getting picked up by a VW bus, and then some shots from Herbie movies, including this one from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (you can tell by the external fuel filler there):

There’s also an interesting little clip from Herbie Rides Again (1974) where Herbie drives over another Beetle like a ramp, and soars off of a building:

This shot is interesting because I believe Herbie here is not the usual 1963 Beetle, but a later Beetle, I think a ’71 Super Beetle (note bumpers and front fender shape). Also, the beetle acting as a ramp has a very strange engine lid, with the twin vents of a ’70-’71 but a license plate light that’s way too low. Also, the rear window looks deeply inset, making me think the body has been reinforced there.

That’s a bit of a tangent for this VW ad, but it’s still important, dammit. Then there’s a couple clips from this famous VW commercial where a Bug gets roughed up a bit, then floated in some water:

Then, of course, we have the requisite hippies and Beetles at Woodstock, then more hippies, this time with Buses at the beach, and then the water-cooled era gets introduced, interestingly, with this short clip from the “Champagne Edition” commercial from 1978:

That commercial featured Rabbits, Sciroccos, and Dashers prominently (with a Bus and convertible Beetle in the background):

Honestly, the Champagne Edition feels like a sort of strange reference, but I suppose you can’t beat it, visually.

We also get some rallying Golfs and an interesting bit of warning/disclaimer text over a scene of people skateboarding around a Rabbit Convertible/Cabriolet:

The warning, “If you’re not living in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, do not attempt” is funny, but I’m a bit confused. Is this referring to just … skateboarding around a Rabbit Convertible at dusk, or was this retroactive for all the goings-on shown before? Well, the goings on from the 1970s to the 1990s, I guess? It’s not clear.

We then get some shots of the modern VW enthusiast scene, with many lovely lowered Beetles and Microbuses and Rabbits, then we get a short Simpsons clip about the “punch buggy” game:

Interestingly, this clip stops before the real VW action starts, as Bart and Lisa there are passing by a massive seller of classic VW Beetles:

(Images: Frinkiac, the Samba)

Even more interesting is the fact that the cars featured on the Volkswagen World sign appear to be a pair of Hebmuellers! Hebmueller was a coachbuilder that made an alternate version of the convertible Beetle with a dramatically different rear body, and even a few hardtop coupés, which is what looks like is depicted on that sign. The Beetles in the lot don’t look like that, so someone knew the difference! Was this a deliberate choice by the Simpsons artists? Was there a secret VW geek on staff?

We then get some more modern VW shots and a lovely wedding with a white Tiguan (I wish that couple better luck than I’ve had) and a nice callback to one of VW’s more fun Super Bowl ads, The Force, from 2011:

That’s still fun.

The ad ends with what is clearly VW’s hopes for the future: that they can reclaim their former status as an innovative, friendly, honest maker of soulful cars – after some pretty debilitating missteps – with the new ID.Buzz electric minivan.

Will this reborn Microbus be enough to recapture what Volkswagen has, frankly, lost? Will modern versions of those 1950s beatniks actually have their attention grabbed by a passing ID.Buzz as they walk by a vintage Beetle in a window display?

Maybe. But will they be able to afford it? Volkswagen got where they are and earned their early reputation by building honest, simple, reliable cars for the people, all people, because they made affordable cars. Does VW still do that? The ID.Buzz, despite the appealing retro design, is not retro-priced. It’s not going to be able to catch on in a big way among the youth because the youth can’t afford it. It’s for now-rich people with nostalgia for the days before they were rich.

Does all of this focus on the Beetle hint at future VW plans? Will we get an electric ID.Bugg or whatever, an electric take on the Beetle? And if we do, will it be another retro-styled pastiche or will it actually strive to reach the original’s goals of affordability and accessibility for everyone?

I don’t really know, but based on recent history, I don’t think I should get my hopes up too much. Still, I’m always happy and willing to be surprised, especially by VW.

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