Subsequently, he transferred to Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt where he became chairman of the board, presiding during the company's development of the successful Audi 100.

Finding a compound filled with 28,000 unsold, unused and increasingly obsolete cars, he sent office staff onto the street to "get rid of them at any cost".

The next day departmental heads responsible for areas where examples of inefficiency or waste had been identified would receive photographs of the deficient work stations, with no comment beyond the signature of the general manager.

His time in São Paulo saw the development of the Volkswagen SP2 to be launched in 1972, one year after he went back to Germany to assume his position as VW CEO.

Volkswagen's development chief, Werner Holste, having recently left the company, Leiding announced that as chairman he would now himself take direct responsibility for development of the company's new product range, supported by a new position for the Production Director at Audi, Ludwig Kraus, the man who recently had secretly, and in direct contravention of instructions from Volkswagen's first autocratic chairman, developed to production readiness the Audi 100, a car which stood apart from the group's other new models of recent years because it was a success from both the engineering and the marketing perspectives.

Ludwig Kraus himself was already 62 years old and now faded from prominence, but Leiding's plan for Volkswagen nevertheless unfolded very much as he had laid out to the press in the early summer of 1973.

[5] Even two years later, with the Beetle continuing to lose favour in the market place, Leiding enjoyed the doubtful privilege of presiding over Volkswagen's record 1974 loss of DM 800 million.

[3] Under Leiding's leadership, the Volkswagen Golf was completed, and went on sale in Europe in June 1974, introduced in North America as the Rabbit seven months later.