Santa Fe resident Marc E. Nonnekamp has written a book, Volkswagen: The People's Car, a business history about the German-made, world-famous vehicle.

Nonnekamp has inside knowledge on the subject matter — he has not only owned several VWs but he has familial ties to the Volkswagen business group.

The book features a discussion of the past and current Volkswagen group brands as well as the group's leading position in the contemporary automotive industry.

Volkswagen appeared to have little chance of success in the years after World War II, having been strongly supported as the people's car by Adolf Hitler, but the VW company became an important factor in Germany's economic recovery.

Those who read the book will undoubtedly recall their own experiences with a VW (pfau vay). My earliest took place in 1950 or so in Kansas City, when one of our neighbors showed upon our block with a new Volkswagen. None of us had ever ridden in one before, nor even seen one until then.

Later in life, I owned one well-used VW when I was stationed in Berlin, another when I picked up a brand-new Bug in Wolfsburg, Germany, where the vehicles were made. That was the car I drove across Europe, visiting Sweden, Norway, the two Germanies, Czechoslovakia, as it used to be known, and Austria before shipping it home from the port of Emden, Germany, to Newark, N.J., where the longshoremen there looked like they could pick up two VWs at a time.

I brought that VW back to New York City, where I lived at the time, but one rainy afternoon it lost out to a Checker Cab in a collision on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. The Bug got me home, but it didn't survive the crash. I haven't owned one since.

Nonnekamp has an MBA in corporate finance from the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary. He's now with the state of New Mexico as a tax accountant.

Nonnekamp's 240-page book is available from publishamerica.com for $29.95.


Stewart Massey, partner of First Santa Fe Wealth Advisors, LLC, an affiliate of First National Bank of Santa Fe, was named in the Aug. 30 edition of Barron's Magazine as one of the magazine's "Top 100 Independent Advisors."

First Santa Fe Wealth Advisors combines the strength of First National Bank of Santa Fe with Massey, Quick & Co., a prominent wealth-management firm, according to an e-mail from the bank.

Before serving as partner of First Santa Fe Wealth Advisors, Massey co-founded Massey Quick in 2004 after a long Wall Street career.

First Santa Fe Wealth Advisors is an investment advisory firm registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that focuses on delivering absolute returns for its institutional and individual clients.

Contact Bob Quick at 986-3011 or bobquick@sfnewmexican.com.