| Type | Automobile importer and dealer |
|---|---|
| Industry | automobile |
| Founded | January 3, 1945 |
| Headquarters | Switzerland |
| Key people | Walter Haefner, Founder |
| Products | automobile |
| Website | www.amag.ch |
AMAG Automobil- und Motoren AG is a Swiss car importer and dealer for Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda, SEAT and until about mid-2008 Porsche cars founded on January 3, 1945, by Walter Haefner.
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AMAG is a group of Swiss companies owned by Careal Holding AG (Zurich). It includes AMAG Import which imports and buys cars from producers into Switzerland and sells them to local Swiss resellers, AMAG Leasing AG (a company making leasing contracts on some of the cars imported), most of the larger resellers of AMAG imported cars, and others.
From 1948 through 1972, AMAG assembled cars—primarily Valiants, Lancers, and Darts supplied by Chrysler as CKDs. These were built to particularly high standards of quality—vehicles produced by Chrysler's own plant in Rotterdam would not pass AMAG's quality requirements—and were priced accordingly; the closed Swiss market was wealthy enough to tolerate high car prices.[1]
All brands of cars imported and sold by AMAG except Porsche, belong to the international Volkswagen group (Audi & Volkswagen in Germany, SEAT in Spain, Skoda in the Czech Republic). Porsche has a close relationship with Volkswagen, strengthened in 2005-2008 by increase of the part of Volkswagen capital owned by Porsche.
The car producer Porsche AG (Germany) has decided to start its own import company in Switzerland during 2008. Therefore AMAG Import will stop importing the brand Porsche in 2008, but the AMAG companies among Swiss resellers of Porsche will continue to sell this brand.