Word: volkswagen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Volkswagen plant in the little North German town of Wolfsburg, about 100 miles west of Berlin, had been built by Hitler to turn out "people's cars" for the 1,000-year Third Reich. In World War II it was 60% destroyed by Allied bombs. Rain slashed through the holes in its roof after V-E day while a motley crew of 8,000 refugees and former soldiers grubbed about in the ruins. Half were cleaning up rubble; the others were virtually hand-tooling a few vehicles for the British occupation army. Falling bricks were a constant menace; live...
...hungry, Nordhoff scraped along for two years on handouts from friends; because he had been a top executive, he was forbidden to work in the U.S. zone at anything except manual labor-and even such jobs were not to be had. But the British asked him to boss Volkswagen in their zone...
Still a G.M. man at heart, Nordhoff was scornful of Volkswagen and the shattered Hitlerian dream it represented. Says he: "I wanted nothing to do with that cheap competition." The British were insistent; they wanted him to take over the plant to provide employment for the depressed Wolfsburg area and produce vehicles for their army. Pressed by the hard facts of occupation life, Nordhoff agreed. Said he: "The future begins when you cut every tie with the lost past...
...Model T. If the British could have foreseen how Nordhoff would drive their own cars off the export markets, they might never have given him the job. By last week, Volkswagen estimated it was the fourth biggest automaker in the world, led only by the U.S. Big Three. Even competitors conceded that Nordhoff was probably the best automan in Europe...
Last year Nordhoff's 20,000 employees turned out 180,000 buglike Volkswagens at the rate of one every 80 seconds, sent them beetling into the markets of 83 foreign countries. The two-door, four-passenger Volkswagen (sedan, convertible and sun roof), powered by a four-cylinder (30-h.p.), air-cooled engine in the rear, has been a fast seller in almost every market it has invaded.* Peppy (top speed: 68) and economical (32 miles to the U.S. gallon), the Volkswagen has become the postwar model T. It outsells all other cars in five European nations...