Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us Page #3

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by developing Volkswagen,

but our job was to help get the

German economy back onto its feet -

for political reasons, of course -

and that was what we were doing.

By the time Hirst left VW,

the company already

had global ambitions.

And its first conquest would be -

of all places - America.

Have you ever wondered

how the man who drives a snowplough

drives to the snowplough?

This one drives a Volkswagen.

So you can stop wondering.

Thanks to a canny

marketing campaign,

thousands of American drivers -

tired of their massive, macho cars -

began to fall in love

with the Beetle.

They were persuaded

that small was beautiful.

And by 1968, when this cheeky film,

The Love Bug, hit the screens,

the Americans had taken

the Beetle to their hearts.

Jim, that's water!

MUSIC:
"Wenn"

by Peter Kraus

Meanwhile, Germany itself,

or at least the western half,

now cut off from the

Communist east, was booming.

Unemployment was down,

production was up.

Ordinary Germans were now richer

and more comfortable than ever.

They called it the

"Wirtschaftswunder" -

the Economic Miracle.

The traumas of the past

were forgotten.

Technicolor consumerism would

sew up the wounds of wartime.

The priority was to look forward,

to buy new homes, new appliances

and, of course, new cars.

This was a crucial period

in Germany's modern history.

By the end of the 1950s,

they hadn't just staged

an extraordinary recovery,

they had done the groundwork

for what is today

one of the most productive and

powerful economies on the planet.

But you might well be wondering,

where was Britain in all this?

After all, we had won the war.

Surely we had a head start,

didn't we?

NEWSREEL:
'On Wednesday, His Royal

Highness the Duke of Gloucester

'opened the first post-war

motor show at Earls Court,

'with congratulations to the industry

on its magnificent achievement

'of 100 million worth of cars

exported since the war ended. '

'50s Britain had never

had it so good.

We were now making and

selling more cars than ever.

At the start of the decade,

we were behind only the Americans

in the league table of

world car-exporters.

But things weren't quite

as rosy as they seemed

in the English country garden.

HORN BEEPS:

We always think of the 1970s

as the decade when things started

to go wrong for British industry.

But I don't think that's right.

By then it was already too late -

the rot had set in earlier.

I think it was in the affluent,

comfortable '50s

that the problems really began.

We were, I think, a bit TOO

affluent and comfortable,

a bit TOO complacent -

utterly oblivious to

the rise of our competitors.

Here she is, a wee Scots lassie.

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