I. Introduction Car building is not for the faint-hearted. After surviving two oil crises (1973-1975 and 1980-1984), car manufacturers experienced record registration of new vehicles (1989), only to find themselves in a period of uncertainty, followed by an abrupt and very severe fall in sales (1993).1 Then came a relatively long period of stability, but within the space of just two months – between June and August 2008 – sales dropped to an unprecede