“PEOPLE’S CAR”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1942, Page 4

“PEOPLE’S CAR”

BECOMES GERMAN ARMY VEHICLE. HOW PEOPLE OF THE REICH WERE DEFRAUDED. Every new day new light is thrown on Nazi cunning in making preparations foi’ war and bluffing the German people while they did it. Broadcasting in English from Calais in the “News from the Front” a German speaker who has been _ visiting the camps in Cyrenaica, has just told his listeners this illuminating fact about the famous Volkswagen (people’s car) so much boosted at one time, so rarely referred to now one of the Fuehrer’s many unfulfilled promises. Many of the German people paid instalments towards .what was to be the poor man’s car, without realising that they were financing war equipment. “The Fuehrer’s idea,” this broadcaster said, “is that a good car at a thousand marks, paid in instalments, would have out-Morrised Lord Nuffield, but for the war.” Then he goes on to let the cat out of the bag: “The Volkswagen was adapted to military purposes. One could not let the . huge factory lie idle.” He ended with a statement that “this little car, using less than three gallons of petrol per hundred miles, gives the best performance as a cross-country car.” In an earlier part of his talk,, the speaker waxed lyrical about the very fine Ital-ian-built roads and about the scenery in Cyrenaica. which he likened to the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire or to parts of Scotland. . No doubt the thousands of Instal-ment-payers who are still without their cars are consoled by the thought of German Army officers being able to admire the North African scenery m them.