Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us Page #2

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by Bing Crosby with The Andrews Sisters

There was nothing very radical or

exciting about the little Beetle -

it was round and it was cute.

But by March 1946, the factory,

at the limits of its capacity,

was producing 1,000 Beetles a month

for the occupying forces

and for Germany's public services.

VW were on the road to recovery.

# Accentuate the positive... #

My chief, Colonel Charles Radclyffe,

said, "I think we've got

a world-beater here,

"it's another Model T".

And he spotted that

as early as 1948.

And yet the early Beetles

were far from perfect.

We always think of German cars

as ultra reliable.

But the interesting thing

about the original Beetle...

is that it wasn't.

As one of VW's

top executives put it,

it had "More faults than a dog

has fleas" but they fixed it,

and they went on fixing it.

And it was that obsessive

attention to detail,

that determination

to put the customer first,

that lifted Germany's car-makers

well ahead of their British rivals.

RAGTIME MUSIC:

People asked us, did we not think

we were damaging British interests

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.

Yes, it's Molly Weir. So, you're

a Morris Minor fan too, Molly?

Och aye, our Minor takes all the

family and our luggage in comfort.

It's very economical too,

but, you see, it's a Morris.

We might have had a big car industry

but size isn't everything.

The men running Britain's

car companies were getting old.

And by the jet-age 1950s,

their autocratic, amateur spirit

looked increasingly old-fashioned.

The English idea of

gentlemanly behaviour...

It involves a certain amount

of self-deprecation,

a certain bit of casualness,

we sort of distrust

seriousness and professionalism

in some ways

but not in our motor cars,

and the Germans

were able to provide us

with magnificent tokens of

professionalism and seriousness,

which our native manufacturers

could not.

They also worked rather better.

We did still make good cars like the

Morris Minor that I'm driving now,

but we didn't market them

as successfully as the Germans,

we didn't push them

aggressively enough overseas.

You know how many

Morris Minors we sold?

Over a million.

But do you know how many

Volkswagen Beetles the Germans sold?

20 million.

The real problem was that we were

blind to the expanding market

right on our doorstep -

Europe.

More than two thirds

of our car exports

STILL went to the

British Commonwealth.

One of the biggest mistakes

we ever made as a country

was to overestimate

the importance of our Empire.

In those crucial two decades

after the Second World War,

our politicians and

our businessmen thought

that we didn't really need

to worry about Europe

because Britain had wider horizons.

Our car-makers, they thought,

would always be able to rely

on the captive markets

of our old colonies.

To put it bluntly, we'd always

be able to flog them our dregs.

The Standard Vanguard

was designed for export.

Its naval name was meant to recall

the great days of Britain's Empire.

There was only one problem -

the suspension.

When the Vanguard's proud new

owners took it out for a spin,

the car began to fall apart.

Good evening.

The Suez Canal is a name

familiar to everyone.

I've come to talk to you tonight

about what's happened there

in the last few day

and what it means to us.

And Britain's Empire, too,

was on the brink of collapse.

In 1956, Britain made a desperate

bid to recapture the Suez Canal -

the vital artery

for Middle Eastern oil.

But when the operation backfired,

petrol prices went through the roof.

Sound the trumpets.

Beat the drums.

Wave the flags.

British flags...

for the fabulous twins - the Austin 7

and the Morris Mini Minor.

MUSIC:
"Say A Little Prayer"

by Burt Bacharach

As a result, designers for

the British Motor Corporation

came up with a new car

that was smaller

and needed less petrol.

They called it the Mini.

We got to make a car - a very

small car - for the housewife,

which is economical to run

and has lots of

shopping space inside

and therefore it doesn't

need a big boot.

Everything stows away

so neatly and easily.

Four happy people

in a big, big, little car.

MUSIC:
"Everybody Be Happy"

by The Kinks

The Mini is probably the most

celebrated car in British history.

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