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6 » LENSES July 2018 | AutoData Disclousure/VW AUTOLATINA IS JUST A MEMORY After Ford and Volkswagen, through their headquarters, disclose the agreement of intentions regarding future potential collaboration of their commercial vehicle areas so that past experience, Autolatina, exercised in Brazil and Argentina, would come back to people’s minds - the experience and the results, of course. What matters, however, is that the world is different from that of the mid-1980s. The companies, for exemple, do not declare themselves pretending a society, as was the case of Autolatina, this is why the purchase or exchange of shares would not have any sense. Neither would delimit geography - or where things will happen - for the present case of this agreement of intentions. AUTOLATINA IS JUST A MEMORY 2 From everything I heard after the dissolution of Autolatina none of the companies felt exactly harmed by that association: they felt satisfied by the results and, equally, by its end. Ford had its balance sheet reinforced, Volkswagen had the engine factory of São Carlos, which was made rapidly, and the plant of trucks and buses of Resende, RJ, project concluded somewhat reluctantly due to autocratic initial decision of Iniaki Lopez on board of a nice romance - are, today, two successful projects. AUTOLATINA IS JUST A MEMORY 3 Getting upset by the creation of Autolatina, as these nine years were running, executives and young executives of both companies, who already had a certain future and a certain perspective in sight and that were stirred in the most diverse ways, as are the facts generated by unexpected events. Some left the company, others had their career cluttered. But who felt, for real, the end of Autolatina was the Volkswagen Dealers: because of the investments in Resende and in São Carlos the portfolio was stuck and that new so desired vehicle took more than two years to emerge...