Volkswagen was offered to Ford for nothing in 1948, and Ford said no.
The British Army ran the bombed factory from 1945, and Britain’s own carmakers had already turned it down, one official report calling the car “quite unattractive to the average buyer”. In March 1948 Henry Ford II’s executive vice president, Ernest Breech, said it was not “worth a damn”. In 2025 only Toyota delivered more vehicles than the Volkswagen Group.
Volkswagen on Brandseum