Carl Hahn, the visionary German govt who championed the Beetle and Microbus within the U.S. and later led Volkswagen Group’s worldwide enlargement into China within the Eighties, died Jan. 14. He was 96.
Hahn died in his sleep at his house in Wolfsburg, in response to a spokeswoman from his charitable basis. A ceremony is deliberate for Tuesday, Jan. 24, Bloomberg reported.
A local of Chemnitz, Germany, Hahn joined VW in 1954, the place his father had been a high govt, and rose to guide the Germany automaker in 1982.
He had been head of Volkswagen North America when the Beetle triggered a cultlike following within the late Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies.
In a 2006 interview with Automotive News, Hahn recalled constructing VW’s following within the U.S. into what turned the German automaker’s market share zenith.
“We had the dramatic advantage of having the Army GIs return to America with our product, which gave it a certain image and mystique,” Hahn mentioned. “The distinction in our basic design philosophy and styling allowed us to stick out from the rather anonymous automotive scene of the 1950s, which was quite superficial and not caring for the customers. The American-brand dealers were making money, but there was not so much engineering thinking. The companies changed the fenders and that was it.”
He mentioned customers had grown “tired of Detroit, and they woke up to our vehicle. Americans wanted our cars as fast as we could sell them, as soon as we could build a structure of dealers that would give excellent service and as soon as we could get a parts supply that would be a model case.”
Hahn later left VW for 10 years, beginning in 1972, to grow to be CEO of provider Continental.
In his 11 years as VW chairman, Hahn reworked Volkswagen AG from a parochial German producer dwelling largely off the Golf right into a diversified worldwide automotive large. Hahn introduced VW to China, presided over the automaker’s acquisition of Spain’s Seat and the Czech producer Skoda, and fashioned joint ventures throughout the globe.
Hahn took over VW at an ungainly time for the German automaker, which had grow to be a “Golf empire” with a fierce focus on its main automotive mannequin and its European gross sales, mimicking its earlier experiences with the Beetle. The focus restricted VW’s future choices, which Hahn got down to broaden.
Hahn was instrumental in main VW into China by means of a three way partnership with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. that launched manufacturing in 1985.
The fruits of these efforts proceed to repay handsomely for VW, which has lengthy dominated the combustion engine automotive market in China, even because it lags home rivals there on electrical autos.
During his tenure with VW, Hahn additionally launched a number of joint ventures, together with a 1987 take care of Toyota Motor Corp. and a 1990 take care of Ford Motor Co. to collectively produce minivans in Setubal, Portugal.
He was additionally on the forefront of German reunification. In 1990 because the Soviet Union broke up, VW invested closely within the former East Germany, altering the automotive panorama there.
Hahn retired in 1993, succeeded by Ferdinand Piech. Hahn chronicled his profession in his 2005 autobiography My Years With Volkswagen.
Long after he left VW, Hahn remained an astute observer of the worldwide auto business, and a gifted prognosticator.
For instance, in 2010, at an occasion in South Korea at which he was a featured speaker, Hahn predicted that China would come to dominate the worldwide auto business, and that its fostering of electrical autos would function a method to “leapfrog its competitors in the traditional automotive industry.”
Source: www.autonews.com
