It was Ferdinand Porsche who was the founder of Volkswagen.
It is believed that he was indeed a technical genius and was employed by a great number of car companies eg Austro-Daimler, Mercedes, Daimler-Benz to name but a few.
In 1930 he opened his own design company. In 1931 he asked his team of staff to begin designing a car with a water cooled 3 cylinder engine. This should have independent suspension and be able to accommodate four adults. The main aim was to keep the costs as small as possible to make it affordable to the masses.
In 1932 he made Zundapp a partner. Originally 3 prototypes were produced using his original design which was equipped with a new engine. Unfortunately the engine turned out to have a severe cooling problem and melted after ten minutes of running. Zundapp decided to leave the project.
NSU a motor cycle manufacturer decided to join forces and a completely new cooled 4 cylinder engine was constructed. The engine was situated in the rear to avoid the traditional transmission with a separate gear box, drive shaft and rear axle. Unfortunately due to the economical climate in Germany at the time NSU decided to withdraw and Porche was once again by himself.
In 1933 at the Berlin Motor Show Adolf Hitler announced his plan to manufacture a small car for the people of Germany. Porche and Hitler joined forces and a contract was signed in 1934. The prototypes were intended to be built by RDA, which was the German Auto Manufacturers Association. RDA were shortly to realise that this project had a chance to be successful and this they did not want. They purposely delayed the project which made Porsche miss the deadline and thus made him lose his contract. Hitler realised this and placed the entire project under government supervision. The 3 prototypes were delivered in October 1936.
To this day the VW has remained almost the same in design. It has a reputation for being a highly reliable car and indeed Volkswagen van leasing is a very popular alternative as they have such a solid history behind them.