VW for rich folks? Ugh.
February 7, 2007 – 10:45 am by Matt Radel
Filed under Rants, Volkswagen Rabbit
Martin Winterkorn, I’m coming for you….
eGMCarTech reports that CEO Martin Winterkorn has plans to move the brand into more of an upscale stance, and as a result has ordered delays to redesigns to existing models. The most notable (for yours truly) is the 2008 Rabbit, who has seen pressure in Germany from Japanese maker Toyota.
But moving the brand upscale? That’s crazy. And stupid.
VW is a blue collar brand. I mean come on. It’s the people’s car. To move it away from that undermines the rich history VW enjoys. Not to mention the fact that many people have their mind made up about VW – good bad or indifferent. It’s going to be difficult to change that. Especially the folks that have suffered from poor quality issues. I can hear the groans now: “Ohhh, they couldn’t build a decent Jetta or Passat, so how in the hell are they gonna cater to the stuffy crowd?”
Personally I think this spells trouble for VW. They had already started moving in a great direction by honoring the history with the GTI and Rabbit (I mean, car of the year for the GTI ain’t too shabby) so why move away from that? I’ll say it now – if VW starts looking down their nose at people, I’m moving away from the brand.
You hear that Martin? Of course you don’t. I’m no longer your target market. You don’t care what a middle class 25 year old thinks any more. Maybe if I could afford a piece of crap Phaeton, then you’d care. For your sake (and VW’s) I hope this is just a rumor. Or better yet, one of those brand adjustments 95% of consumers don’t notice.
VW for rich folks? Ugh.
February 7, 2007 – 10:45 am by Matt Radel
This is a very stupid move, most likely motivated by shiny $$ signs in his eyes. At least he thinks he’ll get those if he moves it upscale. Yeah right.
Here’s the bottom line Mr. Winterkorn. If I want to move upscale, and stay in the German market no less, I’ll be rolling in an Audi, BMW or Mercedes. Not VW, thank you.
I second that comment! I love my new GTI dearly, but there isn’t much of a jump from that model to a sweet Audi.
Why bother? VW owns Audi, so they’ve already got a good hold on the upscale market? I thought VW was trying to scale down their perceived level of class (hence why the price was kept so low for the new Rabbit) because there was too much confusion between upper level VWs (think Passats) and lower end Audis (the A4s). And it makes no economic sense because if VWs scale up, then almost every high-end VW bought will probably mean one less Audi. So how would this help them?
That’s the reason for my confusion/anger Jordan. We can only hope this doesn’t come through, and dies as a CEO’s pipe dream.
And didn’t we already try this route with Phaeton?
Yeah, and did REALLY well with it (HEAVY sarcastic undertone).