Gary Lineker once observed that football was a simple game in which 22 men ran around the pitch, and then the Germans won. Much the same could be said of the car industry. It’s a simple enough business, in which everyone spends billions on big factories and flashy dealerships. And then the Germans make all the money.
Until now, that is. In the last year, through a spectacular mixture of family pride, in-fighting and historical resentment, two of the mightiest names in German industrial history, the car-makers Porsche and Volkswagen, have steered themselves to the edge of cata-strophe. It’s a story of hubris on an epic scale. It’s also a reminder that one reason the Germans are so sniffy about ‘Anglo-Saxon’ wheeler-dealer capitalism is because they are just not very good at it.
The Volkswagen group is Europe’s largest car manufacturer, including not just the ubiquitous VW marque, but also Skoda, Seat, Audi and our very own Bentley.
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