VWSA celebrating 65 years of building Volkswagens in South Africa

65 years ago the first South African-built Volkswagen rolled off the assembly line in Uitenhage, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Uitenhage manufacturing plant

The Uitenhage manufacturing plant was founded in 1946 as South African Motor Assemblers and Distributors (SAMAD).  At that time, the factory assembled at least 12 Studebakers a day, before it started manufacturing the VW Beetle.  

Over the past 65 years over 3.4 million vehicles have been built at the Uitenhage factory, and has become an integral part of the Volkswagen production network.  It has been awarded numerous export orders by parent company Volkswagen AG in Germany.

Today, the factory has grown to a daily capacity of 600 cars for local and international markets.  The current two top-selling passenger models (Volkswagen Polo Vivo and Polo hatch) are produced at the Volkswagen factory in Uitenhage.

Volkswagen has grown from a small German company assembling the Beetle to a large global automobile company.  But the one thing that has remained constant is Volkswagen in the Eastern Cape.  Volkswagen has become entrenched in the minds of South Africans as the “People’s car”, manufacturing and selling iconic vehicles with catchy, heart-warming adverts.

VWSA continues to invest in the economy, and is the largest private sector employer in the Eastern Cape, and as such contributes substantially to all facets of the local economy.

“Our company vision is to provide sustainable mobility for Africa with German engineering and a South African heart.  At the centre of this company is and always will be the exceptional people who build and sell our vehicles.  Without them we would not have made it to where we are today, 65 years later,” said Thomas Schaefer, Chairman and Managing Director: Volkswagen Group South Africa.