Sonder, Volkswagen Sonder.
We do not know?
Rightly so (Photo: Manufacturer's website)
We were told that right now there is some important ball game between France and Argentina, and since we don't understand anything about soccer, our only way to figure out who might win is to look at the cars in those countries.
At the first moment we thought it would be simple - an industrial powerhouse like France with its factories and car manufacturers against a not very rich country that has not really built its own cars in recent years.
But then came the twist.
In 1912, Horacio Anasgasti presents what is today considered the first real Argentinian car - Horacio was a student of Otto Kraus, an engineer of German origin, part of the extensive German community that lived in Argentina back in the 19th century, his car had a 4-cylinder engine made by the French "Balot" with a volume of 2.2 liters that provided 15 hp. Its life cycle was short, with the outbreak of the First World War and the shortage of raw materials its production stopped. It was marketed for only two years and about 50 units were built. But this anecdote, of a car that involves Argentine initiative, German engineering and help From France you will return quite a few times during the story of the Argentine car industry.
Attempts to build sports cars based on Renault models, as in the case of ANDINO, were not lacking and were not successful (photo: manufacturer's website)
As a country whose 20th century was characterized by frequent regime changes and coups, Argentina, which was never a very rich country either, did what a not-rich country hungry for foreign currency usually does - produce for others.
Thus she found herself building plants for Chrysler, Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Chevrolet, Opel, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Honda, Kaiser, Renault, Peugeot, Simca, Seat, Studebaker, Volkswagen and many other manufacturers.
But wait, if the names Studebaker, Kaiser, Renault, Ford and others that are assembled in a country hungry for foreign currency sound familiar to you - then yes, these manufacturers also operated assembly plants in Israel and around the same years in the 1950s and 1960s.
When the local production lines and those in Argentina produced the very same models - the Jeep CJ3, the Willys (called Estanciera), the Renault Dauphin, while we built the Studebaker Lark - with them we built the Champ - its pickup truck version and others.
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Willis, where they called him Estanciera (photo: manufacturer's website)
Argentina, as we said before, was home to a very large immigrant population from Germany.
This solid base resulted, among other things, in the transformation of this huge South American country into a haven for the German upper class and Nazi criminals and senior officers after World War II.
Those who did not want to find themselves under the rule of the Soviet Union in the east of the country or under the western regime where they were assigned out of disgust.
In Argentina, on the other hand, they could find themselves among a supportive community and with chances to make a living and live without the censure of the Third Reich veterans.
Along with this immigration, relatively small car manufacturers with German roots also arrived who found some customers in Argentina.
Auto Union 1000 (photo: manufacturer website)
This is how tiny bubble cars such as Polda-Mobil "Bambi" and Heinkel found themselves on the production line, small family cars such as NSU, medium ones such as the Auto-Union 1,000, or Borgward, and even partnerships such as the German Deutsch with the Brazilian Agrail for production in Argentina, and there were also unique creatures For this market like the 220D a van based on the W115.
And of course the longest-standing romance is with Volkswagen, when the ZUNDER "spark" in German was the first attempt to produce a dedicated Volkswagen family car for the Argentine market, with the 1,500 engine that comes no less than the Porsche 356, a plastic body that made it extremely light (880 kg) C) and a design that only a mother could love. The idea was to capture the growing market for cheap family cars, three years and 200 units later the business was closed, the faltering sales figures did not make it possible to maintain the umbrella of distribution and service required in such a large country.
I wish we had a Mercedes W115 van (photo: manufacturer's website)
It would be 20 years before Volkswagen tried to produce a family again in Argentina, and again it was with a 1,500 engine, only this time it was not a Volkswagen at all but a Dodge/Chrysler 1,500 or as it was called in other markets Hillman Avenger, Plymouth Cricket or Dodge Polara - the background There was the purchase of the Argentinian company that built those cars there.
Such mutations also characterized the continuation of the relationship with Volkswagen in Argentina, which is probably one of the longest and most stable relationships among global manufacturers with this market.
Thus, for example, the Volkswagen Pointer came into the world - which is actually a Ford Escort with a Volkswagen emblem, for those who thought that this collaboration with the Amarok-Ranger was a new story.
Unlike Volkswagen, which put out dedicated models for the Argentine market, Renault and Peugeot received the same models for the other markets, but sometimes a few years late in their arrival and usually they continued to be produced there for a good few years after the rest of the world had already forgotten about them.
Peugeot 403, for example, came off the production line in Europe in 1966, in Argentina only in 1973.
The last Renault 9 was produced in France in 1988, in Argentina in 1996 and the hand is still tilted.
The Judicialista was an ambitious attempt to produce a real Argentinian car (photo: manufacturer's website)
And not that there were no local attempts to establish a local automobile industry, but it often had to settle for products that were either too expensive for the modest local market or too basic to be a competition to tools that came from countries with more advanced engineering and manufacturing capabilities, such was the case with Industrias Aeronáuticas y Mecánicas del Estado or loosely translated - the state's aerospace and mechanical industry.
By order of the then president Juan Peron, a part of the aircraft factory was converted into car production.
The first prototype of the Justicialista was built in 90 days and in 1952 the car went on sale.
The configuration was front engine and front wheel drive, some with two cylinder, two piston engines, some with East German Wartburg engines.
And if the low quality and unimpressive sales numbers weren't a good enough reason, the military revolution of 1955 came and brought the story down.
This is the electric TITA with a range of 100 or 130 km, and there is the passenger version called TITO (photo: manufacturer website)
So yes, judging by the motoring world of these two countries - it's going to be a quick, merciless French knockout of the Argentine team.
Because as far as the car is concerned, at best you can tell about its history which was full of amusing anecdotes.
Its present consists mainly of manufacturers of replicas, kits, miniature electric vehicles and local production under license of outdated models of Western companies.
But on the other hand, if in the end in sports it is the human spirit that wins, with all due respect to France the Argentinians still have an ace in the form of the best racing driver of all time - Juan Manuel Fangio, then maybe, maybe there will still be a surprise tonight.
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