(FORTUNE Magazine) – Richard L. Mugg, 56, spent four years in the Marine Corps. So it's no surprise that the new top gun at Audi of America gets combative when he analyzes the beleaguered luxury-car division of Volkswagen of America. ''We were hijacked by the entertainment network, CBS,'' says Mugg. ''But we're recovering.'' He is referring to a 1986 60 Minutes program that publicized the puzzling phenomenon of unintended acceleration. Cars with automatic transmissions seemed to surge out of control when a driver shifted from ''park'' to ''drive'' or ''reverse.'' Though 50 models by 20 manufacturers have been investigated for the trouble, the problem remains closely associated with the Audi 5000S and 5000CS, once the company's best sellers in the U.S. As sales for the division dropped off more than 60% from a high of 75,000 vehicles in 1985, three top managers at Audi came and went before Mugg finally settled in. No engineering flaws have been associated with unintended acceleration. Still, the 5000S and 5000CS have been reengineered and renamed the 100 and 200. Mugg, a 30-year veteran of Volkswagen, says that automatic shift locks should help prevent further problems. Armed with a new maintenance policy and a bumper-to-bumper warranty that covers the entire car right down to windshield wiper blades and light bulbs, he figures to double 1988 sales to a modest 50,000 units by 1991. It won't be easy. Honda has firmly established the Acura Legend, its new luxury car, while in the tall weeds at the edge of an ever more crowded American market, Toyota and Nissan are polishing their own high-price entrants. To Mugg, the U.S. must be looking a lot like the beach at Iwo Jima.