Volkswagen
Volkswagen are one of the largest car makers in the world, quite a feat for a company that looked unlikely to survive after the Second World War. The reason for the success of Volkswagen is largely down to their Beetle, one of the most popular cars of all time. This turned the company into a well known global brand and allowed them to grow into the position of being the largest car maker in Europe.
Volkswagen was founded by the German government during the thirties in part as a way to provide affordable cars to the German people and partly to help increase the countries industrial capacity. In the days after the First World War the German economy really struggled and there was a major decline in industry. At the time such car makers as there were focused on expensive luxury cars which were far out of the price range of most people. In order to change this the government founded Volkswagen. They quickly produced a cheap car that most people could afford. Unfortunately the company soon had to stop building cars and focus on war production as the Second World War began.
After the war the future of Volkswagen was uncertain but ultimately the decision was made by the allies that the company should go back into producing cars. They realized that it was important to rebuild the German economy and in order to do this they decided that keeping Volkswagen in business was a good idea. This proved to be a wise move as the company's Beetle soon became one of the best selling cars of all time and turned the company into a worldwide brand.
For many years Volkswagen continued to focus on building small cheap cars, in fact for many years the Beetle was their only product. However they eventually came to the conclusion that they would need to expand their product line. In the beginning this was limited to more low cost cars but eventually they expanded to the point that they had the full line up of vehicles that any large auto manufacturer had. One of the areas that Volkswagen focused on was building diesel powered cars. While these were fairly common in Europe they were not at all common in North America when Volkswagen started selling them.
Over the years Volkswagen has grown to become one of the largest car makers in the world. They have taken over many other companies and now sell a wide variety of brands. Volkswagen are by quite a margin the largest car maker in Europe and are the third largest in the world. With their reputation for quality and innovation the company appears to have a bright future. They have always been amongst the leaders in introducing new technology and right now are focused on building cars with lower fuel emissions, an area where they are industry leader.