Calculate the number of people who bought Audi's in SA in 2005

Due to our company's severe employee shortage, I've been sucked into the recruitment function, to the point of the ridiculous. I was asked to interview someone for a position higher than me on the chain - can you imagine the questions I'd ask? "So, Bob, if you gave me a huge workload to do and I told you to sod off, what would you do?" I'd turn down the applications of anyone who said they'd report me to the MD. But the interviewee cancelled so that scenario never came to fruition.

Instead, today I was asked to interview two people who would come in at entry level, just one wee step below me on the food chain. Being a business consultancy, our company normally asks interviewees to complete a case study, to gauge their general awareness of the SA economy and their logical and analytical abilities. We give them no information, but want to see how they think and solve problems.

The first interviewee was so bad she doesn't warrant mentioning. The second one showed quite a lot of promise during the general questions session, then crashed and burned in the case study. For your enjoyment, I take you through the case study proposed to him (the same as the title of this post). Let's call him X and me TWA:

X: Right, firstly, there are plus/minus 3 million people in SA.

TWA: What kind of fuckwad are you? There are more people in Cape Town! Aloud: I see...

X: Then, the cost of an Audi is at least R200,000...

TWA: typical guy. knows all about cars. lucky this time. Aloud: Uh-huh.

X: Of the 3 million South Africans, only 1.5 million will earn a salary of R200,000 and above, to afford to buy an Audi.

TWA: Is this nutcase for real? Do you know we live in a third world country, mister? With an unemployment rate almost up to 30%, and a population skewed towards a generation that is too young to work legally in the first place? And that those who do have jobs are usually blue-collar workers? Have you heard about the on-going nation-wide union strikes for better wages? Have you ever left your privileged little suburb and ventured into the real SA? Aloud: Okay.

X: And I think about 1 million of those people will buy a new Audi in 2005.

TWA: Riiiiiiiiiight. So everyone who can afford to buy a new car does so each year, and two out of every three cars on the streets are Audis. Aloud: Don't you think that's a little high?

X: You're right - let's say 500,000 buy a new Audi.

TWA: Still nowhere close. How quickly can I get rid of this fool? Aloud: And what do the 1 million other new cars comprise?

X: Um, 500,000 Beemers, 300,000 Alfas and 200,000 Mercedes Benzes.

TWA: So what car do you drive?

X: A Toyota.

TWA: I see. Thanks for your time, we'll get back to you very, very shortly with our decision.