Which car surpassed the Ford Model T as history's most sold car in 1972?

The Volkswagen Beetle surpassed the Ford Model T as history’s best-selling car in 1972. On February 17 that year, worldwide Beetle production reached 15,007,034 vehicles, exceeding the Model T’s record.

Ford produced more than 15 million Model Ts between 1908 and 1927. The car’s enormous total came from affordable pricing, standardized parts, and increasingly efficient factory production. It held the all-time production record for nearly half a century.

The Beetle’s achievement was especially notable because its design was also unusually long-lived. Originally developed in Germany as the Volkswagen Type 1, it entered postwar mass production and became a global symbol of inexpensive, durable transportation. “Beetle” became its official name only later, in 1968.

The record concerns total production of a single automobile model, not annual sales or the number of cars currently on the road. The Toyota Corolla later overtook the Beetle’s cumulative figure, but it was not the car that broke the Model T’s record in 1972.