Cars are among the most well-known German products on the world market. Germany began to intensively export cars in the 1950s. The slogan ‘Made in Germany’, initially used by the U.S. occupying forces as a sign to warn customers not to buy German products, became an international symbol for high quality, speed and technology. The Volkswagen Beetle was one of the first successful cars on the world market. Robust, compact and cheap, several million were produced. Aside from cars, such as the Volkswagen Beetle, which are produced in great numbers to meet mass demand, luxury limousines and sports cars also dominate the image of the German car industry.
The German mass production of cars started in the 1920s. Most factories produced a limited number of models. The Volkswagen plant was established in 1938 in a rural community in Lower Saxony, together with the construction of a whole town (Wolfsburg). Among the first major producers (the number of small-scale car builders reached 150 in the 1920s) were Mercedes-Benz, Opel (since 1927 part of General Motors) and BMW. At the end of World War II, the car industry was virtually destroyed. Rebuilding began in the West, with concentration processes which squeezed-out many small firms. New assembly and components plants (for example, Opel in Bochum) were erected by surviving companies and new firms like Audi, which was