Steyr Type 55 Baby

There is definitely a resemblance between the Steyr 55 – affectionately called 'Baby' – and the Volkswagen Beetle.

There is certainly a resemblance between the Steyr 55 – affectionately called 'Baby' – and the Volkswagen Beetle. The later Beetle designer Ferdinand Porsche did indeed work at Steyr from 1929 to 1930, but whether he influenced the development of this Steyr people's car is not definitively established. The concept is officially attributed to Karl Jenschke. The Steyr 50 is presented in 1936 – incidentally the same year in which the Beetle is introduced – and two years later it is succeeded by the more powerful 55. The Austrian company Steyr, originally a weapons factory, began producing cars and tractors around the First World War. In 1924 it merged with Austro-Daimler-Puch to form Steyr-Daimler-Puch, which after the Second World War produced a wide variety of vehicles, including passenger cars and trucks, buses and off-road vehicles. The different divisions were spun off in the late 1980s and in 1998 the Canadian company Magna took over the automotive division. Magna-Steyr currently develops and assembles for many major car brands, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler and Fiat.