Almost Like Detroit

WESTERN EUROPE

In Italy, Fiat Chairman Vittorio Valletta calls it "un certo snobismo"--a touch of snobbism. Other European auto executives describe it in terms of sophistication or selectivity. Whatever words they use, all agree that their business is being reshaped by a significant switch: in size and tempo, Europe's auto market is following the American way. Not only are Europeans buying more cars, but they are moving up to larger, costlier, more powerful models. Says John Andrews, Detroit-trained president of West Germany's Ford Taunus: "A few years ago, Europeans were primarily interested in basic transportation. Now they want styling, roominess, convenience and power."

Running Faster. Detroit is capitalizing on the trend. Last week, adding to its investment in France and Spain,, Chrysler Corp. bought a $34 million take in the British market by acquiring 30% of the stock of Rootes Motors Ltd., manufacturer of Humber, Hillman, Sunbeam and Singer cars. Last month Ford announced that it would spend $400 million over the next three years to expand and modernize its European plants, and General Motors is planning to invest $600 million in Europe over the next two years.

The U.S. automakers' investments are expanding more sharply in Europe than at home, largely because the auto market is running faster in Europe. This year U.S. auto sales are expected to rise 7%, to 8,000,000, but the Common Market predicts that production within its six nations may well increase 15%, to 5,750,000. Since 1958, auto production has doubled in Britain and Germany, tripled in Italy. Europe still has to run hard to catch up with the U.S., where there is one car for every 2.4 people. But the car-owning ratio has risen from one for every 18 Western Europeans half a dozen years ago to one for every eleven now.

Proliferation. Though Europe's 50-odd automakers are not quite ready to embrace Detroit's concept of planned obsolescence, the shapes and sizes of European cars are proliferating. France's Panhard turns out nine mod els, Citroen eight; in West Germany, Ford offers 27 models, G.M.-owned

Opel 24 (including station wagons), Daimler-Benz 16. No firm is quite so versatile as the Glas company, a little-known family business tucked in the Bavarian village of Dingolfing. Last year it rolled out only 35,000 cars, but offered 32 models, from the tiny Goggomobil to a sports car that is said to "look like a genuine Ferrari."

The swing is away from knee-crunching tiny cars and toward five-seaters that resemble U.S. compacts. The popularity of such cars has hurt the small Volkswagen, cutting its share of the German market last year from 34% to 28% . Volkswagen's larger "1500" model is selling well enough to make up for some of the slippage, and France's Renault is reportedly readying a bigger sister for its Dauphine and Caravelle. Fiat recently introduced a 12-ft. "850" model whose chassis is almost a foot longer than the company's basic "600" job.

Popular European cars will not grow as big as American ones--taxes, insurance rates and gasoline prices (800 per gal. in Italy) are too steep for that. Some other American styling idiosyncrasies will also be avoided. Many Europeans think that splashy chrome trim would only rust, and that tail fins would only make parking harder. But one latter-day American innovation has begun to take hold in Europe: the two-car family. Germany's NSU Motoren-werke plugs its tiny Prinz4 as just the thing the hausfrau needs to drive to the supermarket while her husband has his Mercedes at the office.

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