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