Word: volkswagens
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Make way for the Swatchmobile, a sassy two-seater that looks like a cross between a Volkswagen Beetle and a Rambler. In fact, it is the product of an odd corporate marriage sealed last week between Mercedes-Benz, the maker of luxury cars, and Nicolas Hayek, the man who put almost 150 million Swatches on wrists all over the world. So far, the two companies have worked on separate prototypes, which they plan to merge into a single model produced by a joint company (Hayek's stake is 49%, Mercedes' 51%) for the 1997 market...
...April 24, 1990, Rajavi, 56, was heading for his home in the Geneva suburb of Coppet. Shortly before noon, a Volkswagen Golf swerved in front of his car and sprayed the windshield with bullets. Two gunmen jumped out of a second car and methodically pumped five bullets into Rajavi's head. One of the killers leaned over and tucked a navy blue baseball cap into the door pocket. It was the third time police had found a blue baseball cap at the scene of an Iranian assassination...
Shortly after the murder, police discovered the Volkswagen at Geneva's Cointrin Airport. Authorities held up the 5:45 p.m. Iran Air flight to Tehran for two hours, while they noted the identity of every passenger. Investigators are now convinced that several members of the hit team were aboard, as well as two Iranian diplomats suspected of involvement in the killing...
Society has always been reluctant to tolerate research on corpses, allowing it only when it serves to illuminate the unknown and improve medical science. But what if the purpose of desecrating the dead is to learn how to make a better Volkswagen? Germany's largest automobile club, ADAC, denounced the experiments with children's bodies as ethically unacceptable. Even more vehement was the Roman Catholic Church: "A repugnance to the conscience," seethed Vatican theologian Gino Concetti, who expressed "uncontrollable indignation" over tests for which there was "no moral justification...
Heidelberg researchers pointed out that the use of children's corpses ended in 1989 and that the tests had never been kept secret in the first place. One crash study was even published by a research group representing 40 German automakers including Daimler Benz, Volkswagen, Opel and Ford. University officials quickly added that while adult bodies were supplied by homeless people and organ donors, children's corpses were used only with the permission of families, who were fully informed of what the tests would entail...