The Booming Beetle

Despite West Germany's current economic slowdown, German industry's most famous product is still speeding along fast enough to puncture a few egos in Detroit. In a letter to his shareholders last week, Volkswagen Chairman Heinz Nordhoff, 63, announced that the company's 1962 sales seem certain to reach $1.4 billion--a 25% increase over 1961. The total number of Volkswagens produced this year will be well over a million, which will put VW second only to G.M.'s Chevrolet Division as the world's biggest producer of a single make of auto. Biggest enthusiast of the beetle outside West Germany is still the U.S. motorist. While most German exports leveled off this year, Volkswagen's U.S. sales rose 13% to 230,000 cars, trucks and station wagons. The number of VWs registered in the U.S. has now passed 1,000,000, and currently the waiting list at Volkswagen's 680 U.S. dealers is running about 40,000 cars--or two months' worth of imports.

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