The need for this kind of car, and its functional objectives, were formulated by Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, wishing for a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for the newroad network of his country. He contracted Porsche in 1934 to design and build it to his exacting standards.^[8] Ferdinand Porsche and his team took until 1938 to finalise the design.^[8] This is one of the first rear-engined cars. With over 21 million manufactured (21,529,464)^[9] in an air-cooled, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single design platform, worldwide.