Testing the West German model in East Germany and Hungary: the motor industry in Zwickau and Györ

This chapter considers the development of two car-manufacturing plants, both of the VW-Audi group, in two areas that had been parts of the former Soviet bloc: Zwickau and Gyr. There appears to be a major difference between the two, in that Zwickau is in the former German Democratic Republic and therefore in that part of the former Soviet territories that rapidly after 1989 became part of the Federal Republic of Germany, while Gyr is in Hungary. The comparison allows the consideration of not only which former West German institutions VW-Audi takes with it when it establishes plants in areas which might be considered to have weak institutional legacies of their own, but also how this differed depending on whether these and other West German institutions were also being transferred by other means.