If you want some market crash hedges they are perfect.
Car companies are treated as government institutions. BMW and Volkswagen used to produce tanks. The German government will ask them too again if they start struggling to much. Companies like Fiat or Ferrari are as big a part of Italian national pride as rooting for their football team. Hyundai is 10% of South Korea's entire economy.
The car industry is political. Anyone assuming one company is going to sweep in and own everything hasn't paid attention. These companies will be defended until the ends of the earth by their own governments, so you have a massive put existing for all of them by default.
Sorry, apparently I interpreted "tanks" more literally than you do. The Kübelwagen and its amphibic Schwimmwagen variant were el cheapo jeeps, not tanks; BMW manufactured mainly aeroplane engines. Those "vehicles that they needed to wage war from the Urals to Morocco" mentioned in your third article were in all probability "staff cars", for superior officers, based on (barely modified?) pre-war standard civilian models.
So no tanks, AFAICT. They had enough other companies for that.
Car companies are treated as government institutions. BMW and Volkswagen used to produce tanks. The German government will ask them too again if they start struggling to much. Companies like Fiat or Ferrari are as big a part of Italian national pride as rooting for their football team. Hyundai is 10% of South Korea's entire economy.
The car industry is political. Anyone assuming one company is going to sweep in and own everything hasn't paid attention. These companies will be defended until the ends of the earth by their own governments, so you have a massive put existing for all of them by default.