The Car Industry Today: Staging a Stellar Comeback

Abstract

On May 23, 2011, New York’s world-famous Museum of Modern Art was open slightly later than on an average Monday. Not for the general public, of course, but until well into the small hours, a coterie of A-list stars including Yoko Ono and Madonna could be found exchanging pleasantries with leading Volkswagen executives in the ultra-modern surroundings of the MoMA. The occasion for this high-class dinner event was the announcement of a new partnership between the museum and the German automaker, with Volkswagen pumping several million dollars into MoMA as part of a PR offensive which was supposed to ramp up Volkswagen’s presence on the US market.

Car manufacturers used to have to be able to see 15 years into the future. Nowadays, a whole automotive era goes by in a year.

— Osamu Suzuki, head of the eponymous Suzuki Group, speaking in December 2009 as Volkswagen took a stake in his company