What is the purpose of having the engine in the back of the car, and why do only sports cars have it there?
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The VW is by far the most well known in the US, but rear engine designs used to be pretty common for small economy cars. A rear engine layout gives you a lot of the advantages of a front wheel drive setup (a flat floor and easier assembly) without the engineering challenges of trying to transmit power to the wheels that also have to do the steering. Almost all of these cars used air cooled engines for obvious reasons.
Over time the CV joints and what not that you need to build a good front wheel drive car got a lot better whereas stricter emissions and customer expectations for long term reliability made air cooled engines less practical and so the rear engine economy car mostly died out. The one exception being the Smart car and its various knock offs.
As far as sports cars go, the only modern rear engine design I can think of is the Porsche, and I’d argue that this is mostly a historical fluke. Porsche started out building sports cars that took a lot of ideas (and even some actual parts) from the VW Beetle. Modern day Porsche enthusiasts are really invested in Porsche’s somewhat idiosyncratic design and the history behind it and largely regard the companies front engine designs as “not real Porsches”.
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