Volkswagen Vocho: el auto legendario que llegó a su fin

On June 30, 2003, at 9:05 a.m., the Puebla plant manufactured the last Volkswagen Beetle on planet Earth. Not the last in Mexico—the last in the world. Germany hadn't produced it for decades. Brazil had closed in 1996. Mexico was the only country still manufacturing it. And when Puebla shut down, the car ceased to exist as a new object anywhere in the globe. What very few people know is that Volkswagen didn't decide on this closure. It was decided by a decree from the Mexico City government in 2002—an administrative order regarding two-door taxis whose full impact, as determined by whoever signed it, probably didn't grasp. The Beetle sustained the Puebla plant thanks to a single market: the capital's taxis. When that market disappeared, the numbers stopped adding up. This is the complete story: from Hitler's order in 1934, the rejection by Ford and General Motors in 1945, the arrival in Mexico in 1954 and the 36 years of production in Puebla, to the decree that nobody read for what it was — the death certificate of the last factory of the most produced car in the history of Europe.