Having read what Stan has said reminds me of the beetle I worked on about 35 years ago, all I can remember is that I needed far more special tools than I had. This would tend to support the point that it needed more than a couple of wrenches.
Michael Payne ----- Original Message ----- From: Stanislav Jakuba To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Sunday, 07 March 2010 15:14 Subject: [USMA:46867] VW and wrench As a comment to the story below, this Ferdinand-Porsche-and-his-two-wrench-Beatle myth has been reoccurring on this forum and elsewhere for decades. No way to stop it. Some even claim the existence of a 13 mm wrench, but no such bolt heads existed in Porsche's time. My brother and I took apart and rebuilt a WWII KdF, a military version of the original KdF Beatle. We sure needed the whole set of wrenches. There were plenty of other sizes; the need for them is obvious to anyone who ever took any car apart, including its auxiliaries and accessories. Although the "Beatle" KdF and the military KdF differ, it certainly would have been more important to minimize tools in the military KdF. Another myth about Ferdinand the elder is that he was German. In fact, he was a Bohemian, and a citizen of Czechoslovakia until that country stopped existing. His KdF contained several patent infringement on the Czechoslovakian Tatra designs. In his defense, it is said that Hitler told Porsche "Make it like the Tatra." Hitler admired the rear-mounted, air-cooled engined, aerodynamic Tatra cars. Porsche apparently was not to worry about any neighboring countries' patents. While on the wrench subject, you might appreciate to learn (and remember) how to select wrenches to ordinary hex-heads (those made to ISO or ISO-DIN or EU standards). M4 7 M6 10 M8 13 M10 16 M12 18 M16 24 M20 30 Notice the pattern change after M10. I will leave it up to you to figure out the calculation for M4 thru M10 and then deduce the simpler pattern from M12 to M20. That way you will remember it longer. And now something easier yet: Allen wrenches (also known as Imbus) sizes: M4 3 M5 4 M6 5 M8 6 M10 8 M12 10 No thought process is involved here. Just repeating numbers line-shifted. Good luck. Stan Jakuba On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> wrote: Dear Carleton, As I understand it, Ferdinand Porsche designed the first model Volkswagen (1934 I think) with three bolt-head and nut sizes. Almost all of these were either 10 millimetre or 14 millimetre sizes and the third size was for the five larger nuts that held on each wheel with one for the steering wheel. Porsche's plan was that your entire tool kit could consist of two spanners (wrenches) that were 10 mm and 14 mm and that you would own a rarely used 27 mm spanner for the very odd occasions when you needed to remove a wheel. Together with a screwdriver your whole Volkswagen tool kit was intended to fit into a single pocket of your overalls.
