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

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But while the Beetle

was the cornerstone

of Germany's 21st-century empire,

the Mini was a result of

Britain's imperial decline.

The Mini had been designed for

ordinary working-class families.

But by the late '60s,

it was being driven

by models, actors and pop singers.

Even its marketing was

less Coronation Street,

more Carnaby Street.

The Mini - cheap on petrol.

British made!

Small on the outside.

Big on the inside.

Don't just wave the flag, drive it.

The Mini was stylish,

but it was also cheap.

A basic model cost just 350.

But as a rival firm discovered,

the British Motor Corporation

were losing 30 for

every Mini they sold.

Ford are very good at costing

what a car cost to make,

and discovered that they must

be making it for a loss,

they couldn't see

how it was possible.

So, they actually sent

their report to the chairman

and said, "We think you need

to be charging more for this. "

And... it was ignored

and I think this pervades

a lot of the story

of the post-war British car industry.

Arrogance pervaded it.

There was a feeling, you know...

Britain had won the war,

it still had...

It was coming out of its Empire..

It very often knew best,

or thought it did.

And they felt, "Well, we don't

need to be told by Ford

"what we're doing right

and what we're doing wrong. "

But, in fact, they were

doing it very wrong.

MUSIC:
"Son Of My Father"

by Chicory Tip

# Moulded, I was folded

I was preform dried

# Son of my father

# Commanded, I was branded

in a plastic vac

# Surrounded and confounded

by statistic facts... #

Far from being

a symbol of '60s cool,

the Mini was really

a symbol of something rotten

at the heart of the '60s economy,

a brilliantly-designed metaphor

for a managerial industry crippled

by a complacent leadership,

dreadful salesmanship and a fatal

culture of self-satisfaction.

SONG:
"Theme from

Are You Being Served?"

Today, we're used to the idea

that when it comes

to manufacturing -

from your kitchen fridge

to your bathroom shower -

nobody does it better

than the Germans.

But, at the time,

Germany's economic revival

brought back bad memories.

Guten Morgen, mein "Herr-ing".

There you are, then.

Another load of Kraut chitfers.

That's 100 hats with

shaving brushes on the side.

We'll never sell them,

you know, Captain Peacock.

It is not for us to

reason why, Mr Humphries.

Young Mr Grace, in his wisdom,

has seen fit to mount a sales

campaign to push German goods.

Well, it's difficult enough

to sell English goods,

without a lot of rubbish

from the damned Boche.

SOFT-ROCK MUSIC

But the battle for

drivers' hearts and minds

was about to move onto

the home front.

As the Germans prepared to

launch their invasion of Britain,

they had a new weapon

up their sleeve -

The Volkswagen Golf.

It was a hatchback, which was still

something of a novelty at the time,

so it was far more practical -

a Mini did not have

a hatchback at all.

It was a very clever move

by Volkswagen as well

because it had

Volkswagen engineering

but it had Italian style.

The bodywork was designed

by a company called Italdesign -

a very well-known designer

called Giugiaro.

It was just a stunning sort of

angular and very efficient

and practical car.

The Golf - in every test,

one of the best.

SOFT-ROCK MUSIC

British drivers didn't get their

hands on the Golf until 1974.

But in its way, it was

an enormously symbolic moment.

Remember, we'd only

joined the Common Market,

what became the European Union,

a year earlier.

But we were becoming a much more

self-consciously European country.

We went on Spanish holidays.

We drank French wine,

we ate Italian food.

And now, more and more of us

were driving German cars.

The ugly whine of foreign engines

rent the peaceful autumn air

of the English countryside.

All ready, one traitor in eight

has traded with the enemy.

Are you one?

Have you bought foreign?

What about you, sir, could I ask

why you're driving a foreign car?

Well, this particular model is

because I find it very reliable...

good performance and...

I've had it for three years now and

I had no trouble whatsoever with it.

You've had some bad experiences

with British cars?

Yeah, Ford - the bottom dropped out with

rust after about nine months or something.

Have you tried British cars?

Yes, I had a Jag before that,

and Fords before that

and it was the usual trip down

to the garage every fortnight.

It really did hit home when my

brother came home with an Audi...

That was quite a shocking thing cos

he had owned British cars forever

and then he bought an Audi but it

was an astoundingly different car.

Leading the blitzkrieg,

was Volkswagen's hatchback.

VW sold 800 Golfs in the first year

and 20,000 in the second.

To British motorists,

its reliability seemed

simply extraordinary.

Even today, if you don't

own a Golf yourself,

there's bound to be one

in a drive near you.

He's off in that new car again.

Hmm. Wouldn't catch me

in a Volkswagen.

What's wrong with a Golf?

Well, it's not exactly big, is it?

Actually, it's bigger than it looks.

He'll never get that lot in there.

Anyway, I don't like

rear-engine cars.

The engine's in the front -

it's water-cooled.

The back seats fold down too.

What was it that the Golf did

that British cars didn't?

It worked, for a start.

It was a very, very practical car,

so I think people could see it

as a car that they could use, we

could get working with straight away.

Lift up the back, put our

shopping in, fold the seat down.

For most British buyers

that was great,

but it also helped that it was

a Volkswagen, so that means

that it's related to the Beetle

and that was the beginning

of our love affair

with cars which weren't British

which did work.

MUSIC:
"Mama Weer All Crazee Now"

by Slade

1974, the year

the Golf was launched,

was a great year to be German.

On the football field, they won

the World Cup at home in Munich.

We didn't even qualify.

# I said, "Mama, but we're

all crazy now... " #

And while Slade's lurid costumes

were getting rather old hat,

the German synth-pop band Kraftwerk

were reaching for the future,

with their breakthrough

album Autobahn.

MUSIC:
"Autobahn"

by Kraftwerk

Nothing better captured

modern Germany's infatuation

with the machine -

their love affair with "das Auto".

Britain's motorway system

was only 16 years old.

But the autobahns -

mostly free from speed limits -

dated back to the '30s.

Here was the supreme symbol

of Germany's commitment

to power, speed,

and modernity itself.

The autobahn was just such

a symbol of the German character,

in that it looks utterly rational

and they're magnificently

engineered, wonderful roads...

But they look rational

but they're also vaguely

mysterious and romantic,

It's not just transport, it's...

It's, you know, it's philosophy

and religion as well.

For many people in Britain -

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