Volkswagen

An excerpt of an Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal editorial FridayDROP this name at a party: VW Bug. Anyone who ever owned one will immediately launch into an animated retelling of the Volkswagen Beetle's legendary idiosyncrasies. For starters, you didn't need an ignition key so long as you had a slight incline nearby -- say, the ramp of a driveway. Get it rolling, hop in, pop the clutch and you were gone.The cars ran forever on only a few dollars' gasoline. There was rarely a parking space so tiny you couldn't squeeeeze your Bug into it. And, oh, those heaters.

The operators of Cook Volkswagen in Fallston are looking to expand the vehicle storage lot for their Route 1 (Belair Road) dealership, but the property developer must resolve outstanding issues with state and federal agencies and work out an agreement with neighboring homeowners before they can proceed. Members of Harford County's Development Advisory Committee - which reviews developers' site plans and provides recommendations to the Department of Planning and Zoning - recommended during their Wednesday meeting that the owner and developer of the property, listed as 2110 Bel Air Road LLC of Aberdeen, come to a resolution with the county, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers before the site plan could be approved.

WOLFSBURG, Germany -- The troubled German automaker Volkswagen AG shook up its top management board yesterday, a day after the company finally bagged Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, General Motors Corp.'s prized cost-cutter.The shake-up came as the company announced an 87 percent drop in its 1992 earnings and said it would cut dividends.At a meeting of Volkswagen's supervisory board, the flamboyant, aggressive Mr. Lopez was appointed chief of a new division for production and purchasing, areas in which he has strong ideas.

Indie bands, be careful - advertising agencies want your sound, and if you say no, they'll hire studio musicians to do their best impression. Patrick Carney, the drummer for the Black Keys, complained of several big-name companies doing this exact procedure. Now, Baltimore duo Beach House - a band whose new album, "Bloom," hit stores this past Tuesday to strong reviews - is the latest act claiming to be kinda-copied. In a new ad for Volkswagen's Polo, there's a familiar, haunting croon over a light, springy organ.

IT IS FITTING that the central figure in the massive industrial espionage case General Motors has brought against Volkswagen is a Spaniard. Both of these multi-national automakers have huge stakes on one another's home turf. U.S.-based GM owns Adam-Opel, one of Germany's big auto manufacturers. Germany-based VW has an extensive network of distributorships in this country.The dispute is a highly personalized one in which a Spanish-born visionary, Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, is accused of making off with reams of GM documents and computer files when he was hired away from General Motors by Volkswagen in 1993.

FRANKFURT, Germany -- General Motors Corp. said yesterday that German prosecutors had indicted Jose Ignacio Lopez, the former GM executive who switched to Volkswagen AG, on charges of embezzlement and theft of confidential documents from GM.The charges, which had been expected for several weeks, are somewhat less severe than the fraud charges GM had originally sought; they carry a maximum prison term of three years rather than five.Also, as expected, prosecutors will not file criminal charges against Volkswagen's top executives or board members, as GM had wanted.

Flipping through television channels at her Belcamp home on a recent evening, Hattye Knight wasn't sure what caught her attention first: the sickening crunch of metal and shattering glass as an SUV slammed into a smaller sedan, or the jarring visual of the car's occupants smashing into inflated air bags. Either way, Knight said, she was transfixed, catching her breath as the sedan spun around and exhaling only when the two couples inside, who had been bantering about a movie they had just seen, emerged shaken but OK - and the words "Safe happens" flashed over the scene.

BONN, Germany -- The fight between Volkswagen and General Motors escalated yesterday as VW's chairman accused GM executive in Europe of waging a vendetta against the German auto maker's worldwide production chief.The latest chapter in the international corporate duel involving secret GM documents and the defection of a top GM executive to VW came with published comments by Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen's chairman, about GM's legal campaign against Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, who abruptly quit GM in March to take charge of VW's worldwide production.

GENERAL MOTORS and Volkswagen, obviously worried about their images, have settled civil litigation in the industrial espionage case of the decade. Though the German auto maker agreed to pay GM $100 million in cash and buy $1 billion in parts over the next seven years, this was a pittance compared to the $4 billion in damages the American manufacturer was seeking on charges that VW lured away a GM executive who took vast quantities of trade secrets with...

WOLFSBURG, Germany -- Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest carmaker, said yesterday that its second-quarter net income rose 90 percent, in line with expectations, amid cost-cutting and as a weaker mark boosted foreign demand.Profit in the second quarter rose to 316 million marks ($176 million) from 166 million marks a year earlier.Growth quickened from 48 percent in the first-quarter, mainly because of lower tax charges, analysts said."The trend is good but the numbers are broadly in line with market expectations," said Francois Colli, an analyst at Paribas Capital Markets in London.

Jonathan Browning built his career on four wheels, but his passion rides on two. Browning, Volkswagen Group of America's top executive, doesn't see why cars and bikes can't — to steal a slogan from the automaker — coexist on the road of life. "Almost every family in the country has a car and a bike in some condition in the garage," said Browning Tuesday morning as he sat in the lobby of a downtown Baltimore hotel, cycling helmet in his hands and a blue Volkswagen jersey stretched across his lean torso.

Laurel police report felonies, arrests and property crimes. Prince George's County police report violent crimes and property crimes. Howard County police report major crimes, break-ins and car thefts. City of Laurel Eighth Street , 600 block, Jan. 8. Entry gained by forcing open door on storage shed. Yellow and white riding 1 Club Cadet lawn mower and snow blower taken from shed at St. Mark's United Methodist Church. Nichols Drive , 900 block, Jan. 6. Laurel youth, 16, reported being stopped by two men as he was walking home.

WASHINGTON -- Automakers slashed the number of cars and trucks recalled in the United States in 2006 by 38 percent, as General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. made good on pledges to reduce safety-related defects in their vehicles. A Detroit Free Press analysis of federal data suggests that automakers have become more adept at catching problems earlier in production, before they affect a large number of customers. But their systems are far from perfect: Government investigations sparked many of the largest recalls last year.

Together, we drove past the glorious cornstalks of the Midwest, sped and weaved through the throngs of yellow cabs in Manhattan and spent countless hours in the stop-and-go of the Baltimore and Washington beltways. She is dead now. My beloved 1999 lime-green Volkswagen Beetle, constant companion for a little more than three years, will run no more. As I drove home from work late a few Sundays ago, the timing belt broke. Any mechanic will tell you a worn timing belt is like an IED waiting for an insurgent to hit the switch.

Flipping through television channels at her Belcamp home on a recent evening, Hattye Knight wasn't sure what caught her attention first: the sickening crunch of metal and shattering glass as an SUV slammed into a smaller sedan, or the jarring visual of the car's occupants smashing into inflated air bags. Either way, Knight said, she was transfixed, catching her breath as the sedan spun around and exhaling only when the two couples inside, who had been bantering about a movie they had just seen, emerged shaken but OK - and the words "Safe happens" flashed over the scene.

Unlike other members of my family, and most people I know, I still watch the commercials on television. While my husband flips through dozens of channels before the top of the Orioles' next inning and my teenagers instant message their friends, download a song onto their iPods and finish a homework assignment in between crises on The OC, I watch to see how corporate America hawks its wares. As a high school teacher of an American pop culture class, I have more than just a passing curiosity, particularly in what is being sold to teens and twentysomethings, one of the most active consumer groups in the marketplace.

An alleged attempt to steal a car yesterday sent a 17-year-old Arbutus youth to the hospital and into police custody, Howard County police said.Carl A. Geng, 51, of the 3000 block of Oak Green Circle in Ellicott City told police he saw someone tampering with his son's Volkswagen in the parking lot of their apartment complex about 2: 32 a.m. yesterday.After asking his wife to call 911, police said, Geng carried a revolver outside and confronted the youth inside the car.Police said the youth tried to walk away from the car and then lunged at Geng, who hit the youth in the head with the butt of the pistol.

In Germany, exploring the family tree is a risky proposition. Beware the limbs of the 1930s and '40s, for they may be laden with Nazis.But in recent years it has become fashionable among some of Germany's largest corporations to make the exploration. Giants such as Deutsche Bank and Daimler Benz have commissioned historians to clamber exhaustively through the tangled branches their Third Reich years.The result has been a series of sober corporate confessionals, detailing everything from Deutsche Bank's role in the "Aryanization" of Jewish property to Daimler Benz's use of slave labor.

WOLFSBURG, Germany -- Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest carmaker, may eliminate as many as 20,000 jobs in the next three years, extending a cost-cutting program that helped it raise earnings last year. VW shares gained nearly 10 percent yesterday, the most since 2003. The announcement came as the company reported a preliminary 2005 net profit of 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), or 2.90 euros ($3.47) a share - up 61 percent from 697 million euros, or 1.79 euros a share, in 2004. That beat analysts' forecasts of 834 million euros ($998 million)

J. Bryan Mears, an automotive wholesale manager and sports fan, died of a heart attack Sunday at Harford Memorial Hospital. The Fallston resident was 55. Mr. Mears was born and raised in Salisbury. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Baltimore, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business in 1969. Mr. Mears began his career in the early 1970s in sales at Maryland Volkswagen on East 25th Street. He eventually became sales manager and owner of the business.