This study examines a crucial period in European integration, ending in the early 1990s, when significant progress was made towards the dream of a unified European market. It shows how European automakers were part of these changes and how their influence within the institutions of the European Union (EU) yielded a wide range of policy compromises governing a single European car market. The book begins by reviewing the history of the EU and the logic of regional free trade, and goes on to develop a political explanation for the kinds of changes that actually occurred. The author argues that European automakers enjoyed a privileged place in the political arena, albeit one much transformed by the new institutions of the EU. Therefore, these firms often significantly influenced regional policy outcomes. The argument is applied to policymaking in the important areas of environmental regulation, trade, subsidies, and anti-trust regulation. This work lies at the intersection of business, economics, and political science and is of interest to both experts and non-specialists with an interest in the tremendous economic and political changes brought about by the creation of a united Europe and, more generally, by the worldwide process of regional economic integration. Academics, professionals, businessmen, and leaders in government all have something to learn from the way in which firms and governments combined to build the largest car market in the world. Roland Stephen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, North Carolina State University.

Cars are essential in modern Western societies. Some even say that our modern lifestyles would have been impossible without cars. The dependency of Western societies on our cars is a unique situation in history, but does not get much attention; car use is seen as just a normal situation. The population at large knows the risks, knows the disadvantages, experiences the advantages and keeps driving. Using data from Western Europe, this book examines three key themes: frequent car use, car dependence, and the future of passenger car mobility in societies. In conclusion, in modern Western risk societies, more attention needs to be paid to car dependence, its driving forces, its advantages, its problems and challenges for the future.

Junkyard offers the only known photographic documentation of car collector Rudi Klein’s famed stockpile of distraught—but rare and valuable—vehicles from Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati, and more. In 1967, Rudi Klein began quietly buying up wrecked, damaged, and worn-out high-end European cars under the business moniker “Foreign Auto Wrecking.” Over time, he amassed a stunning collection of treasures. Among the stash is a one-of-one 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K built for pre-war Mercedes racer Rudolf Caracciola. No one is precisely sure what other prizes rest behind the yard’s not-open-to-the-public gates. Some 20 years ago, and after much negotiation, photographer Dieter Rebmann and author Roland Lowisch were permitted rare entrée to the salvage yard’s grounds to document its residents.This record of Klein’s collection is nothing short of amazing for any classic and collector car enthusiast. Sadly, Rudi passed away in 2001, but the collection remains under the care of his sons, who operate it as elusively as their father, maintaining its decades-long air of mystery and desirability.

Laux carefully examines how European factory owners emulated American success in production and sales between the wars, how the postwar market boom chipped away at American dominance of the industry, and how Japanese models in turn began to cut into the world market in the competitive 1980s. In this incisive overview, Laux determines that Europe's most successful automaking firms were generally those which identified a market and offered this market a product at a reasonable price.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 1,7, University of Lisbon, course: Industriegeographie, Geografia de Industria, language: English, abstract: Wirtschaftsgeographie, Arbeit ber geographische Verteilung und Dynamik sowie den Einfluss von betriebswirtschaftlichen Organisation- und Produktionsformen auf die geographische Verteilung der Automobilindustrie. Blick auf portugiesische Automobilindustrie