Word: volkswagen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Reader Jim DiMiceli (who bought a finned Plymouth after becoming disenchanted with a French-built puddle jumper) erred in expecting good workmanship from a nation unable to even govern itself. Too bad he didn't try a Volkswagen. People who can lift themselves from the 1945 flat-off-their-backs to dominate Europe economically can, among other things, build good cars...
...overbearing ambassador (1940-44) from Nazi Germany to the French puppet government at Vichy, onetime professed pacifist and champion of Franco-German solidarity, whose prewar activities in France, e.g., bribing writers and newsmen, helped reduce French preparedness during the gathering storm; by flames in the interior of his Volkswagen after a crash near Dusseldorf, which also killed his wife. Abetz was tried as a war criminal in 1949 and sentenced to 20 years at hard labor. Freed in 1954, he avoided politics, worked as a freelance writer on economics...
...Detroit isn't solving our problems-it's creating them," says San Francisco Social Worker Janet Pence, who recently retired her 1951 Hudson in favor of a pale blue Volkswagen. "When it became difficult to park downtown, we were greeted each year with a longer car. When the price of gas and oil went skyhigh, we were asked to buy gas guzzlers. Well, we plan to become a two-car family soon, just as Detroit advises. But we're getting another Volkswagen...
...horsepower. In effect, the desire is for everything the U.S. car already is, only 10 ft. shorter, and somehow a lot cheaper. In any case, a U.S. model would probably be a "compact" car, something like the Rambler, rather than a small car. Nor will it be cheap. Volkswagen learned that fact of life. It planned to manufacture in the U.S., but found that it cost at least $100 per car more. There was one overriding difference-labor cost...
DAIMLER-BENZ, maker of Mercedes autos, has bought controlling interest in Germany's Auto-Union, manufacturer of DKW cars, to form world's fourth biggest auto company, largest outside U.S. Daimler and Union had combined 1957 sales of about $525 million v. $500 million for Volkswagen, which has been fourth in industry...