Keeping a sense of proportion

Volkswagen are currently producing at the rate of over 1,200,000 vehicles a year, and expect to sell over 250,000 of these to America. You just can’t keep a good VW down—American VW sales for May reached a new peak of 26,812.

Over 200,000 Ford Cortinas have been produced in the first ten months of manufacture, and 120,000 exported, while in four years B.M.C. have built over 600,000 Minis and are now producing them at the rate of 5,500 a week. In contrast, Mercedes-Benz have a production target, 3,500 of the World’s Best Car every month; their Ingolstadt factory has made 25,000 D.K.W. F12s since production of the new Auto-Union model commenced six months ago.