Traditionally the Autoworld museum devotes its February and March exhibition to a facet of the Volkswagen Beetle, with the Love Bugs Parade linked to celebrating Saint Valentine.
However, the latter will not take place in 2021 for reasons that everyone can image, but the exhibition organised in collaboration with Volkswagen will take on a rather distinctive and highly original aspect.

“Volkswagen Milestones” will focus on three periods in the life of “Everyman’s car” and as leitmotiv concentrating on three key models in the history of the make: the Beetle from the ‘50s – ‘60s, the Golf from the mid-‘70s through to the beginning of the ‘80s and, finally the brand new ID.3, the recently launched electric car.

Each one of these icons reflects a quite specific era and marks, each time, a radical turn-about with the previous one, both in our lifestyle and the evolution of the automotive models. 
Because this car, which we cannot do without and which at times is criticised, only mirrors the history of our society. The arrival of a new generation of vehicles chases away another …for a while. The new forms of consumption, the change in our habits, our awareness, whether it be political, economic or societal, make us look at the world in a different manner.

And this is what this exhibition wishes to demonstrate.  

“Volkswagen Milestone 1” - centred around the Beetle
Europe has four years of war behind it and the “people’s car” experiences a true craze.
As from the ‘50s-‘60s our parents and grandparents quenched their thirst of everything they had missed and discovered a new freedom: travel, holidays, first television sets, consumption of products from across the pond, code breaking music, … and right down to their way of dressing which freed the women from their rigid corsets.
In this atmosphere of freedom, the car was a central element, and among them, the VW Beetle, was a true gem!

“Volkswagen Milestone 2” - centred around the Golf
1974: the Golf appears on the market. It is a radical break with the past.In society, consumption is still as strong, speed on the roads know no limits. It is the era of carefreeness, of the “enchanted interlude” and the pill for women. The "flower power" movement of the previous decade blew up the codes of a society which has now profoundly changed.

Volkswagen Milestone 3” - centred around the ID.3
New stage in the evolution of society. A new awareness. The climate crisis pushes companies and individuals to review their priorities. Electricity is gradually replacing fossil fuels in many areas of our daily lives. Solar panels, wind turbines … and it goes without saying, hybrid and electric cars become inescapable elements for a society concerned with the future of the earth and its future generations.
2020: ID.3 tackles this new approach to mobility. 100% electric, it reconnects with the Beetle’s same spirit but is far more respectful of the environment, and more spacious also. 

If on the one hand the three vehicles in this exhibition appear to be radically different, on the other what they have in common is that they narrate the history of the evolution in our way of thinking and have, each in their own way played the same catalytic role in their respective eras. 

For two months Autoworld will devote a podium to the first Beetles (of which a ‘binocular’, a “cabrio’, an ‘oval’…) and another for the Golf (of which the first dating from 1974, a GTi, a cabrio, a diesel, the first four-door…). As for the third podium, it will show case the three eras side by side centred around the three iconic vehicles.

Fun, educational, nostalgic, contemporary … “Volkswagen Milestone” is definitely an exhibition that will interest the entire family!