ANE grades the East's major players; VW, Suzuki and Dacia score high on our 10-year report card; Fiat and Ford have room for improvement.

Automotive News Europe,  February, 2006  by Frink, Lyle

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Byline: Lyle Frink

Volkswagen - A

Reason: The carmaking group really would have problems without its extremely successful operations in central and eastern Europe.

VW has raised Skoda production to more than 450,000 cars a year from about 125,000 in 1991, when it took its first stake in the Czech company. VW also successfully repositioned Skoda across Europe as a brand that offers premium VW quality at value prices. But VW's position in central Europe is much more than Skoda. The German automaker has invested more than [euro]1.5 billion in Slovakia, where its Bratislava ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.