Car Market Switzerland: 1960's

Things were so different back in the 60's in the Swiss car market. GM Euro makes Opel and Vauxhall were both imported. Fords were from Germany, Britain and the US. BMC brands still had credibility and sold well. Chrysler sales were mainly Simca, but also newly acquired Sunbeam from Britain and US models too. NSU was still to be absorbed by VW into the Audi marque. Triumph were part of Leyland, soon to become the new BLMC conglomerate. The same applied to Rover/Land Rover. How things changed in the next few years.

Below is listed sales for 1964, brand/sales/share:

Opel-Vaux 24,473 18.3%
VW 22,604 16.9%
Ford 14,186 10.6%
BMC 11,427 8.6%
Fiat 10,019 7.5%
Chrysler 9,133 6.8%
Peugeot 6,172 4.6%
Renault 5,929 4.4%
Citroen 5,320 4.0%
Volvo 3,256 2.4%
Mercedes 3,055 2.3%
GM US 2,820 2.1%
Auto Union 2,705 2.0%
Triumph 1,799 1.3%
Alfa Romeo 1,761 1.3%
BMW 1,434 1.1%
Land Rover 818 0.6%
NSU 742 0.6%
Lancia 512 0.4%
Jaguar 500 0.4%
AMC 464 0.3%
Porsche 406 0.3%
Rover 358 0.3%
Saab 266 0.2%
Other 3,476 2.6%
Total 133,635

There are no Japanese makes in the above list. That invasion started at the end of the 1960's and quickly made strong inroads thereafter.

Data Source: Schweiz Bundesamt für Statistik (BFS)
Pics: Simca - http://sv.wikipedia.org
Opel - www.velocityjournal.com

The Rover 600

This was a car I really liked, although it wasn't as successful as it deserved. The 600 was basically a Honda Accord, which wasn't a bad thing. It was tweaked so as to have a British feel to it, and that worked quite well. For European tastes it was probably too Japanese. When I was on holiday in the UK, I met an American chap who had a rental 600. I asked him his opinion of the car and he loved it. He wanted to buy one back home, but they were not exported there - at Honda's insistence.

I don't know if it replaced another car, but if it did, I'm picking it carried on from the Montego. The Rover 600 started to be produced in 1993, the Montego finishing in 1994. The six years of production figures are as below, followed by UK sales:

1993 30,394
1994 54,603
1995 61,518
1996 43,701
1997 40,291
1998 40,815
Total 271,322

1993 14,454
1994 23,397
1995 24,200
1996 19,900
1997 22,300
1998 ?

So it was a good car, but lacked in prestige and dynamics. It was replaced by the Rover 75, but that model came a bit too late and the 75 never even matched the 600's production volume.

Pics: www.autoplenum.de
Sales figures: http://bestsellingcarsblog.com/

Car Market Spain: 1960's

Getting guaranteed car sales data for Spain is difficult. From what I did find, the market back in the 60's was limited to brands made within the country. In 1961, less than 70,000 cars were sold so not a market big enough to support many manufacturing plants. Sales grew well and by 1969, perhaps 380,000 cars were sold.

Below are the sales as accurate I could get for 1969:


Make/Sales/Share
1 Seat 222,000 58.8%
2 Renault 73,000 19.4%
3 Simca 28,500 7.5%
4 Citroen 22,500 5.9%
Others 31,800 8.4%
Total 380,000


Some may wonder about the brand Seat - pronounced 'say - at'. Well, when the Spanish government decided to have a local brand, both Fiat and VW sought to be the alliance partner. Fiat won and by 1950, the first Seat cars came off the assembly line. Then a falling out in the early 1980s between the Spanish government and Fiat led to Fiat leaving the venture and VW quickly moved to replace them.

Today, Seat fights with other brands for market leadership and its share is about 9%. The Spanish car buyer has plenty of choice in the car market now. No one brand can command even a 10% share, quite a unique situation.

Car Market Germany: 1970's

In the 70's things were changing steadily in the German car market. The top three brands lost ground, especially Ford. Meanwhile, the three premium brands closed in as more affluent German buyers could afford to move up a level of quality. Japanese brands were starting to feature and import European car makers were feeling their presence. In 1979 sales and market share were as below:

1 VW 580,575 22.1%
2 Opel 471,900 18.0%
3 Ford 311,925 11.9%
4 Audi 246,650 9.4%
5 Mercedes 242,850 9.3%
6 BMW 153,925 5.9%
7 Renault 129,750 4.9%
8 Fiat 83,200 3.2%
9 Citroen 50,700 1.9%
10 Talbot 43,950 1.7%
11 Peugeot 41,150 1.6%
12 Toyota 32,500 1.2%
13 Mazda 32,400 1.2%
14 Nissan 32,000 1.2%
15 Honda 28,700 1.1%
16 Volvo 25,000 1.0%
17 Alfa Rom 22,750 0.9%
18 Mitsubishi 20,725 0.8%
19 Porsche 12,000 0.5%
20 GM US 11,425 0.4%
21 FSO 11,275 0.4%
22 Lada 10,650 0.4%
23 BLMC 9,700 0.4%
Sonstige 17,750 0.7%
Insgesamt 2,623,400

Since then, the three German premium brands have taken an even stronger hold while the Asian threat faltered as Japanese brands failed to increase their market share. Overall the German market now seems to be rather predictable, strong support for local product and foreign makes largely on the periphery.

Source: VDA

Car Market Germany: 1960s

Car purchasing in Germany in the 1960's reflected the growing prosperity. Sales in 1960 were 970,000 but had almost doubled to 1,840,000 by 1969. VW was the biggest brand, capturing 32.5% of the market in 1965. GM Opel was a stable second and got a respectable 25.5% in 1964. Ford kept third spot warm and obtained an 18.3% share in 1966. Mercedes was a regular at 4th, until the merger of NSU and Auto Union into Audi in 1968 pushed past the three pointed star. Fiat and Renault were popular back then and top ten regulars. BMW only had 2.3% of the market in 1965, but in 1966 it purchased the Glas car company and seemed to strengthen after that. The top 20 as best I can determine in 1969 was as follows:

Rank/Brand/Sales/Share
1 Volkswagen 470,000 25.5%
2 Opel 350,000 19.0%
3 Ford 288,000 15.6%
4 Audi 134,500 7.3%
5 Mercedes 127,300 6.9%
6 Fiat 123,500 6.7%
7 Renault 112,500 6.1%
8 BMW 77,000 4.2%
9 Simca 54,000 2.9%
10 Peugeot 26,800 1.5%
11 Citroen 21,700 1.2%
12 NecKar 13,800 0.7%
13 Alfa Romeo 8,800 0.5%
14 DAF 8,500 0.5%
15 Volvo 4,000 0.2%
16 Skoda 3,500 0.2%
17 Porsche 3,100 0.2%
18 Honda 1,700 0.1%
19 Autobianchi 1,200 0.1%
20 Hanomag 1,050 0.1%
Sonstige (Other) 11,000 0.6%
Insgesamt (Total) 1,841,000

The 1960's started with virtually all German cars, but imports made inroads over the decade - mainly French and Italian. I'm unsure as to why British cars didn't figure. Mind you, with a 11,000 others, anything could be lurking there.

Quelle: VDA