He was developed from the company Karmann in Osnabrück (G) in co-operation with Luigi Segre, chief stylist of the Turin firm Ghia and made both famous. The body was pulled over a VW Beetle chassis with initially 22 kW (30 hp) and very last 37 kW (50 hp) and was so for its look a bit too slow. The car had two seats in principle, because of the back seat of the Beetle is not much left over. 1955 it came out as a coupe and 1957 as a convertible. The price of 7500, - DM was enormous compared with 4600, - DM for a Beetle Export, so that the Karmann Ghia achieved with nearly half a million cars produced an impressive number, But compared to the Beetle with almost 25 million still clearly stayed behind.