Word: volkswagen
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...years ago a combination of higher oil prices, recession and consumers' lack of confidence depressed industry output 22%, to 2.8 million cars. Volkswagen lost $312.5 million, and German Ford $68.3 million; General Motors' Opel subsidiary, thanks to nimble financial management, was able to stay in the black with a profit of $2.4 million on sales of $1.8 billion. "The big producers were all stuck with high breakeven points [largely because of high labor costs and excess plant capacity] when the recession struck," says Lutz, who moved to Ford from Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) in 1974. "Now the arithmetic...
...sales, which were up 20% from a year earlier through the first 20 days of February. Next year the company will enter the subcompact field with a front-wheel-drive auto modeled after Chrysler France's highly praised Simca 1307/1308. The company has agreed to buy from Volkswagen up to 300,000 four-cylinder engines and 120,000 front axles for its new subcompact, thus saving $100 million in tooling costs...
...contrast of wealth and poverty so apparent in most Latin American countries is less stark in Puerto Rico. Between the shacks and the skyscrapers lies a buffer zone of crackerbox concrete housing developments with a Volkswagen in every garage. Twenty years of industrial development as a self-governing commonwealth under American rule have created a large middle class whose veneer of prosperity conceals the extensive poverty that afflicts large sectors of the island's population...
...replace the Beetle and other slow-selling models, Volkswagen and its subsidiary Audi NSU have introduced five new cars in the past 3 ½ years. Among them: the Rabbit-called the Golf in Germany, where it is currently the top-selling car. A success on both sides of the Atlantic, the Rabbit will be offered in Europe late this year with a 45-h.p. diesel engine. Since the oil crisis, diesel-powered cars, such as the bigger Mercedes and French-built Peugeot, have grown in popularity in Europe, largely because they use cheaper fuel, and less...
...strategy for propelling Volkswagen beyond the Beetle was laid out by the company's former managing director, Rudolf Leiding, who launched a $1 billion program to design new models in the early 1970s. When Leiding quit under fire a year ago, he was replaced by Schmücker, 54, a 30-year veteran of Ford's European operation. One of Schmücker's first moves at Volkswagen was to offer up to $6,000 tax-free to workers who would quit. Some 24,000, or 17% of the company's German work force, accepted. That...