Bugging the Beetles

Is it time to exterminate the Volkswagen beetle, which has not changed much since it first began bugging the roads after World War II? West German Finance Minister Franz Josef Strauss thinks so -- and in a recent speech he warned that VW had better begin to produce a car more attuned to contemporary demands for "performance, comfort and safety."

Strauss's attack was triggered by VW's request that the government relax tax measures that were instituted to ward off a potential deficit in the national budget. Turning the company's complaint around, Strauss charged that the carmaker has come up with little in the way of innovations that might spur the German economy out of its deflated state.

West Germans currently are showing an alarming preference for roomier foreign models, which now control 15% of the market compared with 11.6% only a year ago. Getting the biggest new slice of business are French cars, once considered junk in Germany. Warehouses are bulging with unsold German autos, while vehicle exports during the first three months of 1967 were off 15.3% from the same time in 1966. VW factories are producing about 1,000 fewer cars daily than they did in 1966, and since Jan. 1, workers have had 24 enforced days off.

As Volkswagen sees it, the key to its resurgence is decreased taxes on gasoline and new cars, higher tax deductions for commuting by car, and government authorization of reduced auto-insurance premiums. Strauss has other ideas: "It had better consider which market is still particularly receptive to its product in the light of the increased demands of Western Europeans for comfort."

Lashing out at VW's proud heritage, Strauss concluded: "A great name is no longer enough. The needs of car buyers have grown." The Minister is a kind of case in point. Despite a vigorous attack on his own weighty problems, Strauss still tips the scales at 205 lbs. and fits better into his own BMW four-door sedan than into a beetle.

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