Introduction and Overview

Abstract

This chapter introduces the book and provides an overview of all the eight other chapters. Overall, the book seeks to provide the first relatively in-depth historical overview of the development of foreign car plants in the five former Socialist CE nations of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the often ignored East Germany. In doing so, it also sheds light some of the factors driving the growing shift in European car production eastward. Separate chapters are dedicated to each CE nation’s foreign car production histories. A bonus chapter chronicles the activities in the next ring of European car production, the SEE Auto Zone, an area encompassing Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. These six chapters are bookended by one chapter that provides some basic background data as a foundation for these historical developments, and a conclusion that speculating on the near-term prospects for car production in CE and SEE (next five to ten years).