Car Production In Germany By Brand : 1965-69

An advanced car for its day that was a flop on the sales front

Production continued it's upward trend in Germany through the late 1960's. VW was accounting for half of the volume and GM Opel not far off a quarter. Ford managed to produce less units surprisingly. Mercedes was increasing consistently and NSU released the technically advanced Ro 80 model in 1967. Sales were poor, as was its reliability and the now struggling NSU was taken over by VW in 1969, merged with Auto Union.

BMW was now on a roll and no longer the 98 lb weakling it had been for so many years. Auto Union was making a come back while Neckar's Fiat cars were meandering. In 1966, BMW bought Glas and benefited from both technology and skilled engineers.

Add three zeros to the figures below to get the total production number.

Yr	VW	GM	Ford	MB	NSU	BMW	A U	Por	Nec	Glas	Oth	Total
1965	1,363	616	316	174	92	63	52	11	15	30	1	2,733
1966	1,392	649	291	192	104	71	67	13	22	27	2	2,830
1967	1,089	540	194	200	103	82	39	11	18	18	2	2,296
1968	1,450	648	208	216	127	101	70	14	18	8	2	2,862
1969	1,532	788	301	257	144	140	120	15	13	-	3	3,313

Summary: Increases in production volumes continued and the brands that would take the industry forward were taking shape.