What They Really Drive On The Autobahn: Germany's Top 50
According to lore, Germany’s autobahn is teeming with S-Class, Porsches, and the occasional Veyron mixed in. Not so, says Germany’s Über-DMV, the Kraftfahrtbundesamt, in an article about the 50 top selling cars in Germany of 2010. “Upper class and sports cars are not in the Top 50,” say Germany’s keepers of car data. The truth is in the following table.
25 cars made up half of Germany’s sales last year. The Top 50 account for 66 percent. 42 percent burn oil. Electric cars? Hybrids? Do you see any?
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I remember living in Brussels, Belgium a few years back for awhile. Everyone drives a compact hatch. A hatch's layout is the most usability you can get out of such a volume as fits their streets, taxes, and operating costs. Americans really aren't that different in 'practicality' of layout if not scale. They just drive hog-hatches and call them 'crossovers' at this point. I mean, they don't even pretend to be trucks anymore...just oversized AWD blob-wagons with a lift-kit. But I don't get the Golf-thing. Might be German, might be pretty neat little car in various trim, but there's so many cars in that space. And its not like anyone else gobbles them up like that because of some universal, intrinsic quality about Golfs, even amongst dedicated compact car buyers.
I 'm jealous of how many choices Deutsch have over us.