The Toyota Corolla eventually surpassed the Volkswagen Beetle’s record for total production of a single automobile nameplate.
Toyota introduced the Corolla in Japan in 1966 as a compact, rear-wheel-drive car. Its combination of affordable pricing, simple engineering, fuel economy, and worldwide availability helped the nameplate spread across multiple continents. Later generations shifted to front-wheel drive and adopted larger bodies, new safety equipment, and hybrid powertrains, while retaining the Corolla name.
The Beetle had held the production record since Volkswagen built its 15,007,034th example in 1972, overtaking Ford’s Model T. The Corolla passed the Beetle in the late 1990s and reached 50 million cumulative sales in 2021. A common point of confusion is that Corolla totals span twelve generations and many body styles, whereas the Beetle changed far less over its long production run. The Volkswagen Golf also later exceeded the Beetle’s total, but it was not the first answer to this question.