Do you remember the history of VW's subsidiary car companies? In 1965 Volkswagen bought Auto Union from Mercedes and renamed them 'Audi'. In 1969 VW bought NSU, and merged them with Audi to form a division called 'Audi- NSU-Auto Union'. In 1985 this was simply renamed to Audi AG. They remain fully owned by Volkswagen
The old Auto Union had been an amalgam of four old German car companies. Wanderer had been formed in 1885, Horch in 1899, DKW in 1904 and Audi in 1910. They existed separately until 1932. Wanderer made sensible 4 and 6-cylinder family cars; Horch made expensive, luxury 8 and 12-cylinder limousines and sports cars; DKW made inexpensive two-stroke cars and millions of motorcycles, while Audi made similar cars to Wanderer that were a little bit sportier.
Financial troubles across all four makers led to negotiations, and in 1932 they merged under the Auto Union name. Each division continued to make their own cars in the same way as before. Only the famous Grand Prix cars carried the name 'Auto Union'. After making motorbikes, cars and trucks during the war, the Zwickau-based Auto Union was kaput when Germany surrendered. Everything in eastern Germany was lost to the Russians (the later Trabant was based on an early DKW design).
DKW was restarted in West Germany in 1949, but the Horch, Wanderer and Audi nameplates were not. DKW made motorbikes, small cars and vans in the 1950s and were bought by Daimler Benz in 1958. Volkswagen bought them in turn in 1965. VW kept making the small DKW sedans until 1966, when a new, modern range of water-cooled, four-stroke front-drive cars was introduced. VW then retired the DKW badge and renamed the division 'Audi', reviving the badge not used since WW2.
NSU started even earlier, way back in 1873, when they made bicycles, motorbikes and later small cars. They were the world's largest motorcycle maker during the 1950s but had switched over completely to cars by 1963. NSU built the world's first wankel rotary car, the Sport Prinz in 1959, and the revolutionary Ro80 in 1967. This caused big financial troubles, and VW took them over in 1969. VW took NSU's conventional model and sold it as the VW K70 in Europe.
So how many of these early VW family members have been sold in Australia? It is impossible to say for sure. Certainly DKW cars and motorbikes were sold in Australia during the 1920s and 1930s, as were NSU motorbikes. Baron Klaus von Oertzen, who later helped set up Volkswagen in Australia and South Africa in the 1950s, was the Australian DKW agent in the 1930s. There are surviving Audis, Wanderers and Horches in museums, notably in Adelaide and Fremantle, bought by wealthier buyers of the time. However, Australian sales figures from the 1920s and 1930s are not available. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has kept records of Australian automobile sales only since 1939, and semi-detailed sales histories only since 1948. The FCAI's yearbooks begin in 1959, with the Black and White Data Book starting only in 1990 and VFACTS in 1997.
This is still a good period of time, and by examining all these old publications we can look at exactly how many VWs, Audis, NSUs and so on have been sold in Australia. I will be giving you all this info in a series of articles over the next few issues - and it's quite interesting. To start us off, let's see how many VW subsidiaries (now dead) have been sold here, at least since 1948.
Australian DKW sales:
1948 1
1949 0
1950 1
1951 0
1952 0
1953 0
1954 1
1955 0
1956 1
1957 1
1958 1
1959 4
1960 2
1961 0
1962 0
1963 0
1964 4
Total: 18
DKWs
were distributed in Australia by Eric Moore Pty Ltd of 80-82 Wentworth Ave.
Sydney, a motorcycle dealer who also sold bikes by DKW, Ariel, Royal and
Enfield. This site is now a derelict office building, but still recognisable as
former motorbike sales shop. The early DKW cars would have been two-cylinder
two-stroke F89 sedans, rather than the larger three-cylinder twostroke Type F91
and F93 models. The F89 shown was a development of the pre-war DKW F7.
In
1959 the DKW Junior appeared (left). It would be nice to know exactly what model
DKWs were sold here, but the FCAI's data is not that specific. DKW also sold
some Munga 4WD off-road vehicles here, but they were classed as commercial or
armed forces vehicles and do not appear in the FCAI's data. The DKW name was not
used after 1966.
Australian NSU sales:
1959 8
1960 77
1961 151
1962 238
1963 127
1964 107
1965 52
1966 29
1967 0
1968 0
1969 49
1970 70
1971 34
1972 12
1973 25
1974 1
Total: 980
In
the pre-VW days, Hazel and Moore Industries Pty Ltd. of 36-38 Campbell St.
Sydney distributed NSUs in Australia. They were another motorcycle company, also
selling Triumph, Norton, Panther and Indian bikes. This dealership is long gone,
and now the site of the gaming room of the Chamberlain Hotel. The access laneway
next door is still there. The NSUs in the early 1960s would have been the little
Prinz, Prinz 4 and Prinz 1000 models, in the years before VW owned them.
After
1969, the VW importers LNC Industries imported the Ro80, so all NSUs sold here
from 1969 (120 of them) were Ro80s. The model ended in 1977 in Europe (as did
the NSU name), but LNC did not import the Ro80 into Australia after 1973.
Australian Skoda Sales:
1949 18
1950 1,029
1951 992
1952 83
1953 111
1954 142
1955 202
1956 104
1957 176
1958 340
1959 292
1960 366
1961 280
1962 282
1963 293
1964 220
1965 181
1966 136
1967 111
1968 67
1969 34
1970 54
1971 14
1972 2
1973 0
1974 9
1975 83
Total: 5,459
Skoda
is a car maker from the Czech republic (formerly Czechoslovakia, and before that
the Austro-Hungarian Empire) that began as a bicycle works in 1895 before moving
on to motorbikes in 1899 and cars in 1905. They made trucks for the German
forces in both World Wars, and when the communists took over the company was
nationalised. They made tough, reliable cars of 1950s/60s design right up until
1987, when a new range of Bertone-designed cars with modern engines was
introduced. The fall of communism in 1990 prompted the government to privatise
its industries, and they chose to sell off Skoda.
Volkswagen bought the concern in 1991 and Skoda became another VW division, like Audi and SEAT. Modern Skodas are based on VW designs - the Octavia has a Passat platform and the Fabia is based on the Polo.
The above listing is probably of academic interest, as VW did not own Skoda when they were sold here. In those days the distributor was Halifax Motors of 102 William Street in Sydney. The models sold then were the Skoda 1200/1201, the Skoda Octavia and the Skoda MB1000. The FCAI's figures don't list Skoda separately after 1975, but tiny numbers of additional Skodas may have been sold here up to 1987. If so, the FCAI would have included them under 'Others'.
In March 2007 VW Group Australia announced that Skoda would be reintroduced to Australia, with the Octavia and Roomster to be displayed at the Sydney Motor Show in October. The models will go on sale in 2008 through a range of 15 new Skoda-only showrooms attached to existing Volkswagen dealerships. VW is hopeful that a successful Skoda will not impact on VW sales. We shall see.
Australian SEAT Sales:
Ibiza Cordoba Toledo TOTAL
1994 15 5 0 20
1995 778 948 133 1,859
1996 239 583 153 975
1997 4 358 4 366
1998 14 55 6 75
1999 56 168 42 266
Total 1,106 2,117 338 3,561
SEAT is Spanish car company that was founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of Fiat, but with a substantial ownership share by Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. SEAT stands for Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Touring Cars), and should be pronounced "SEH-aht." SEAT made Spanish copies of Fiat 600s and Pandas under licence until 1981, when Fiat decided to withdraw from the arrangement. A new SEAT Ronda in 1982 was based on the Fiat Ritmo without Fiat's consent, which sparked legal action. The Spanish government looked for another partner and Volkswagen signed on in 1982. Volkswagen became a majority shareholder in 1986, then finally 100% owner of SEAT in 1990.
Like Skoda, modern SEATs are based on VW platforms. The Ibiza hatch is based on the Polo, as is the booted Cordoba, and the larger semi-booted hatch-tail Toledo is based on the Golf. The small SEAT Altea people-mover is based on the Golf Plus/Touran platform, and the larger SEAT Alhambra is based on the VW Sharan. The previous VW Caddy small panel van was actually a badge-engineered SEAT Inca.
The
then-VW distributors TKM Automotive attempted to introduce SEATs in Australia in
1994 as a sort of cheaper VW, but they did not have the resources or the
commitment to maintain the brand on our market. After the initial enthusiasm
wore off, sales declined. When Volkswagen Group Australia was formed in 2000,
SEAT sales were discontinued. VWGA has stated a number of times, most recently
in March 2007, that there are no plans to reintroduce them. Attempts to
introduce SEATs to the US and Canadian markets have also failed, but they are
popular in Europe and the Middle East.
Next month - all Audi sales in Australia, from 1967 to the present day.
Phil Matthews