[ Volkswagen GmbH. ] Large collection of material assembled by English employee B. D. Ryder, including 12 volumes relating to his nine-month survey of VW's German operations, with reports by Ryder and a mass of company ephemera, photographs, etc.

The author Bruce Dudley Ryder was a second-cousin of the present Queen of England – his father Peter Hugh Dudley Ryder (1913-1993; see Who Was Who) having married the Queen's cousin Sarah Susannah Bowes-Lyon – and a great-grandson of the Earl of Harrowby. Ryder had family experience in the fields of business and transport, his father having been for many years head of the transport conglomerate Thomas Tilling Ltd. Ryder joined the Warranty Department of Volkswagen's British subsidiary at the age of nineteen in October 1961, and by his own account (in Part Two below) set about his work assiduously, engaging in a series of reorganizations, and producing a number of reports and proposals in 1961 and 1962. He spent a nine-month period, between 10 June 1963 and 19 March 1964, observing and training with the parent company in the Federal Republic of Germany, covering all aspects of the business, from manufacturing (Volkswagenwerk) and servicing to administration and the work of dealerships. The twelve volumes of material he assembled during this stay (Part One below) form the bedrock of the present material. The following description of the eighteen volumes in the collection is divided into two parts. PART ONE: Twelve uniform and numbered black 31 x 26 cm ring binders, housing a substantial collection of material, carefully presented in plastic sleeves. The length of the spines of the twelve volumes placed side-by-side extends to 60 cm. In good condition, with light signs of age and wear. The twelve volumes contain, as Ryder himself explains at the beginning of Book 1, 'Reports and Notes on my experiences, findings and suggestions on the various Courses that I assisted to and the Departments that I visited during my stay with the Volkswagen Organisation in Wolfsburg, Hannover, Kassel, Stuttgart and Hamburg'. February 196A detailed and meticulous study of the business organization and practices of the Volkswagen parent company at the height of the German economic miracle, with supporting material, made by an employee of the firm's British subsidiary, during nine months (10 June 1963 to 19 March 1964) spent with the firm in West Germany. Ryder's typewritten reports and notes are accompanied by a profusion of illustrative material, ranging from hundreds of original photographs (see below) to company ephemera including: a metal address plate in printed plastic wallet, a 'Kardex-Signal-Plan', a 'Hollerith system' spare parts punch card, stock control card, a handwritten 'Position Chart' on pieces of coloured card, break tester card, warranty labels, 'Record of last Service' label, promotional material (including group photographs of employees, and a set of 24 18 x 24 cm black and white images of 'Europe's largest Automobile Factory'), temporary defect reports, dealer service department report, despatch note, order forms, invoices, manuals, advertising, workshop survey form, embroidered patches, 'Salesman's report', factory manuals with diagrams, calling cards, template, stationery, printed company napkins, postcards, organization chart, and with small bundle of related material, including photographs and printed ephemera, is loosely inserted at the end of the twelfth volume. Among the booklets in the collection are 'Team Plans' for 'Routine Servicing (4 Mechanics at one Hoist)' and 'Type 3 Servicing', and 'Service and Test Stations | A series of pictures of modern layouts'. Books 2 and 3 consist of a detailed typed report by Ryder, with 48 illustrative postcards (captioned by him), on his five-week stay at Volkswagenwerk's Service Workshop, Kassel. The next four volumes (Books 4 to 7) contain notes and material relating to technical courses ('VW-Specialists Courses') attended by Ryder at Wolfsburg. The last five volumes (Books 8 to 12) cover the last three months of Ryder's stay, spent with Volkswagen's Hamburg distributor Raffay & Co., with Ryder explaining his aim as 'to see and study the administration and the various standard Volkswagenwerk systems being put into practice in the Service, Spares and Sales Organisations of a V.W. Distributor in The Federal German Republic. Like V. W. Motors [in England], Raffay have their own systems and ideas, besides VWW ones, and it is some of these that might prove to be beneficial to the Company, Nevertheless, it will be very interesting to compare the methods, ideas and systems of Volkswagenwerk, Raffay & Co. and V. W. Motors Ltd. Perhaps, we will be able to take the best from all three and put them into oparation. [sic]' Volumes 8 to 11 contain a total of 265 black-and-white illustrations, again captioned by Ryder, of various Raffray & Co departments, including 241 photographs of nine of the firm's workshops (Hamburg-Altona, Marschnerstrasse 25, Winterhuder Marktpl. 19D, Mittelweg 160 – I, Hamburg-Nienstedten, Fruchtallee 29, Hamburg-Borgfelde, Hamburg-Rahlstedt, Hamburg-Krohnstieg), each of the nine sections being accompanied by a 'Workshop Report' by Ryder, giving details of Personnel, Key Figures, Monthly Turnover, Workshop Organization, VW Signs. In addition to this, the last two volumes contain around 200 photographs, in colour and black-and-white, of the businesses of seven of 'Raffray's Dealers': Max-Bremer, Franz Eble, Bernhard Jahnke, Ernst Moeller, Willy Tiedtke, Urbanek & Hoeger, Max Wunder, again each accompanied by a two-page 'Workshop Report' by Ryder. In Book 5 Ryder gives a detailed description of the complicated arrangement of the Warranty and Building and Planning Departments. The account of the set-up of Raffray and Co includes a detailed description of the 'Central Card Index Department', with accompanying material including a promotional booklet on the Kardex system, and a loosely-inserted substantial booklet on the 'Application of the ADRAS System in Volkswagen Repair Shops', with a number of fold-out diagrams. Also, among material relating to the Export Sales Department, three duplicated typescripts: first, 'Directions for Discussion Leaders' (37pp.) in a 'Slide set with sound track' titled 'Plan for Success – The Right Way'; second, 'Draft Outline for VW Chart of Accounts on an international basis for dealers and / or workshops (to be used as a guide in individual countries)'; with 'Importer's Cost and Retail Price Calculation'; third, final version of 'Directions for Discussion Leaders | Plan your success' (22pp.). Book 6 includes 26 promotional photographs of the Spare Parts Department, with detailed captions by Ryder. The first of the twelve volumes begins with a three-page 'Programme for my period of stay in the Federal Republic of Germany | 10.6.63 – 19.3.64', which forms the basis of the following list of contents. BOOK 1: Information on Volkswagenwerk. BOOK 2: Volkswagenwerk's Service Workshop; Factory Closure for Summer Vacation; Foreign Service Department (One day spent in this Department, looking through Technical Literature, before departure to Kassel.). BOOKS 2 and 3: Volkswagenwerk, Kassel (Reconditioning methods and assembly of Rear Axle and Transmission, Front Axle and Steering, Engine). BOOKS 4 and 5: VW-Specialists Courses: BU, MHV, M (for engine repairs), H (for rear axle and transmission repairs), V (for front axle and steering repairs), E (for electrical repairs); Service Adviser's and Workshop Manager's Course KW. BOOK 5: Warranty Department; Building and Planning Department; Foreign Service Department. BOOK 6: Spare Parts Course. BOOKS 6 and 7: Export Sales Department. BOOK 7: Technical Service Department. BOOK 8: Programme for Raffay & Co. in Hamburg; Introduction and Organisation Chart of Raffay & Co; Warranty Department of Raffay & Co; The Area of Distributorship of Raffay & Co; Note: Return to England (Christmas, Surrey – Report to Mr. Graydon of Volkswagen Motors Ltd, London). BOOKS 8 and 9: Raffay's Workshops: B1 Hamburg-Altona, B2 Marschnerstrasse 25, B3 Winterhuder Marktpl. 19D, B4 Mittelweg 160 – I, B5 Hamburg-Nienstedten, B6 Fruchtallee 29, B7 Hamburg-Borgfelde, B8 Hamburg-Rahlstedt, B9 Hamburg-Krohnstieg. BOOK 9: General Spare Parts Department of Raffay & Co. BOOK 10: The Sales Organisation of Raffay & Co; Central Card Index Department of Raffay & Co. BOOK 11: The Training of Apprentices of Raffay & Co; Servicing Line of Raffay & Co; Service School of Raffay & Co. BOOKS 11 and 12: Dealer's of Raffay & Co. BOOK 12: Authorised Workshops of Raffay & Co; Note C: Volkswagen, Wolfsburg; Return to England. PART TWO: A total of six albums, comprising: two folders of material relating to the firm's British subsidiary VW Motors Ltd; two albums of press cuttings; and two photographic albums. All six in good condition, with light signs of age and wear. One of the two black plastic folders (similar to those in Item One, but slimmer) relating to the firm's British subsidiary contains a number of typed reports (1961-2) by Ryder, with accompanying illustrative material: 'Report on my experiences during the months of November and December in the year 1960 and the twelve months in the year 1961 in the Company of VW MOTORS LIMITED Sole Concessionaires for Volkswagen in the United Kingdom', 31 January 1962; 'A Detailed Account of What to do In Order To Process a Claim From Beginning to End', 29 May 1961; 'Re-organisation of the Warranty Department. September-November, 1962' and 'Temporary Defect Report', both 25 October 1961; 'Technical Service Department', 21 February 1962; 'Report on my Experiences in the Technical Service Department', 1 February 1962; 'REPORT: on My Experiences at our Plaistow Depot'; 'General Report: - Lodge Road', 18 February 1962. The second folder relating to VW Motors Limited contains internal circulars and memoranda (circa 1964), as well as the ten-page typescript of an 'Address by P. H. D. Ryder [i.e. B. D. Ryder's father] given at I.C.I. Conference at Warren House, Kingston on 13th October, 1960.' The two large albums of British magazine and newspaper cuttings relating to Volkswagen date from between 1962 and 1968. The photographs in the two albums, were taken while on a trip to the United States in the early 1960s, many of them relating to Volkswagen. A volume of later material relating to Ryder's later work for Mercedes-Benz is available separately.