Well VW started as a scam; the Nazis collecting workers money promising them a nice car, but never delivering them (the money was literally used as a slush fund). After WW2, the British took over the sector, and needed staff cars, putting the workers to work. Then an out of work Opel executive rocked up, and transformed what was considered even in 1945 a terrible car, into a favourite, mostly through doing something no one had thought of before; a dealer network with committed customer service. Before cars were sold, and the dealers basically told to <deleted> off and quit bothering them. If VW are returning to defence contracts well that a bit like back to 1945 and Major Ivan Hirst all over again. Certainly what the VW will find; the defence industry will do well for the next few years, with contracts. But it won't be forever. The industry (I worked in it) is quite peaky and troughy. The troughs are deep with procurement programmes end without replacement. Interestingly, they'd do well to look at British Aerospace, which is one of the biggest players out there. Back in the day, BAe brought Austin Rover (the former BL), and then sold that on after a few years to BMW. People think that BAe made a hash at it, because they don't know the car industry. But I feel they absorbed some of the Leyland manufacturing expertise; building at scale. Previously, the high tech part of the defence industry was a bit cottage industry like. Famous names were actually small factories, making things very slowly in batches. Another parallel; Alvis. Alvis made REALLY nice cars, right until the 1960s. They segued into defence. The cars are long gone, but as part of GKN, the name is well respected in defence. Moving onto COVID-19, we found out the "hitech" medical devices industry was much the same; the market dominant Smiths Medical ventilators were being made in a shoddy looking shed in Luton. The car industry, such as Ford, GM, the F1 teams, Mercedes, were brought in to leverage some of their expertise of making lots of things, at scale, quickly, and implementing large volume 3D printing. Didn't quite pan out when people discovered that COVID-19 victims didn't actually need ventilators, so now we have warehouses full of the things, half a decade on, that hospitals don't need. At least VW is being responsible to its shareholders, and recognising change is in the air. Happens in all areas. The successful companies adapt and thrive, the unsuccessful ones become Radioshack, Woolworths and Circuit City. Maybe they left it too late.
