Rudolf Leiding

Dr. Ing. h.c. Rudolf Leiding (4 September 1914 – 3 September 2003) was the third post-war chairman of the Volkswagen automobile company (Volkswagenwerk AG), succeeding Kurt Lotz in 1971.

Leiding began his career with Volkswagen at Wolfsburg in 1945 where he was responsible for the repair of army vehicles. Professor Nordhoff then charged him with setting up the first postwar Wolsburg assembly line, using such parts as he could find^[1]. Leiding's ingenuity at this task led to promotion, and Leiding found himself sent to the USA to oprganize the first VW service network there^[1]. Between 1958 and 1965 he was the first director of the VW works in Kassel. Subsequently he transferred to Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt where he became chairman of the board, presiding during the company's development of the successful Audi 100.

Leiding arrived at the top Volkswagen job with a reputation as a successful trouble-shooter. When Volkswagen under Nordoff acquired Auto Union/Audi, Leiding was sent to "sort out" morale and discipline, as general manager at the Ingolstadt plant^[1]. During his first week he took to standing at the plant entrance each day at 7 am in order to check on late arrivals for the morning shift, a technique he subsequently employed at other plants^[1]. Finding a compound filled with 28,000 unsold, unused and increasingly obsolete cars, he sent office staff onto the street to "get rid of them at any cost"^[1]. Many friends and relations of Ingolstadt based Audi employees acquired bargain unused cars as a result of the exercise^[1]. Demand for the Ingolstadt plant's output did not justify a night shift at this time, and Leiding took to walking through the plant at night in the company of a photographer^[1]. The next day departmental heads responsible for areas where examples of inefficiency or waste had been identified would receive photographs of the deficient work stations, with no comment beyond the signature of the general manager^[1]. It was reported that during his first year at Ingolstadt Leiding reduced production costs by 34%^[1].

In July 1968, Leiding left Ingolstadt to take on the chairmanship of Volkswagen of Brazil. His time in Sao Paulo saw the development of the Volkswagen SP2 to be launched in 1972, one year after he went back to Germany to assume his position as VW CEO. Over the space of three years from 1968 to 1971 he also achieved, a 50% increase in Volkswagen's Brazilian production.

Less than three weeks after taking over from Lotz at Wolfsburg, Leiding halted work on EA266 (Development Project 266). This was the development of a sophisticated - from a production engineer's standpoint over-sophisticated - mid-engined successor to the Beetle being developed by a Porsche team under a well regarded young engineer named Piëch on Volkswagen's behalf.^[2] The move was hugely contentious at the time partly because the Beetle replacement project was well advanced: 16 Million Marks had already been invested in EA266.^[2] It was culturally contentious because it hinted at a rejection of the company's historical roots. Given the market's lukewarm reception to newer rear-engined air-cooled models such as the Volkswagen 411, Leiding's decision to use Audi products then in the pipe-line as a short-cut for Volkswagen to follow Europe's pace-setter manufacturers such as, above all, Fiat down the water-cooled front-engined front-wheel drive route makes perfect sense in the light of subsequent events. But contemporaries lacked the hindsight necessary for that judgement.

The extent of Volkswagen's problems was highlighted during the first four months of 1972 when the company's domestic sales of 151,086 were comfortably beaten by Opel, who sold 161,127 cars in West Germany in the same period.^[3]

Even two years later, with the Beetle continuing to lose favour in the market place, Leiding enjoyed the doubtful privilege of presiding over Volkswagen's record 1974 loss of DM 800 Million. Nevertheless, 1974 was a critical year for another reason: it was the year that Golfs started emerging for the Wolsfburg plant, and Leiding's successor reaped the reward of a DM 1,000 Million profit two years later in 1976.^[2]

Under Leiding's leadership, the Volkswagen Golf was completed, and went on sale in Europe in June 1974, introduced in North America as the Rabbit seven months later. The Golf was credited with saving VW from possible bankruptcy after the company had relied on the Beetle too long.

Rudolf Leiding left the company early in 1975 and was replaced by Toni Schmücker.^[4]

He died on 3 September 2003, one day before his 89th birthday.

Sources and further reading

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.