VW's army

The cars that roll out of the Volkswagen factory are-
Fox
Golf
Polo
New Beetle
Eos
Jetta
Passat
Tiguan
Touareg
Touran
Phaeton

Cars coming to India from VW

VW's vast flagship will be its third offering in India.On equipment and dynamics,the Phaeton takes on the 7-series, the A8 and the S-class,an does quite well.Its fast,you got get upto 6.0 litre,has superb ride and interior that would do justice to the costs.The only question is over brand value.The Indians try to buck trends,if the Passat finds a premium image in the Indian consumer's mind,this could stand a chance too.

The second offering in India is the Touareg.The car is a lets move on saga.Its a 3.0 ltr V6 diesel engine thats on sale here,does about 0-100 i 9.3 seconds which is not bad for a car its size.300 bhp of mad horse power,and a torque of 750 Nm,the Touareg makes sure there is a fair bit of drool of the driver's seat.It has a 6 speed gear box.Ride quality is quite plaint for an SUV for India.A humongous 100 litre tank giving you 8.2 kms for each of those litres,this monster does away with the frequent fuel stops.Thus it turns out to be a stopper for the Q7 and the Cayenne which are currently eating away the premium SUV market.If your grey cells help you any bit,this car was featured in the Bourne Ultimatum,where the car was made to go through a lot but still managed to stand strong.


VW hs decided to launch a small car in India in 2010,this news came out in the Frankfurt car show,one of the most popular in the world

How the Revolution began!?

Volkswagen was born out of the will of Adolf Hitler. It is known that during his imprisonment in 1924 he read books about Henry Ford’s story and he was deeply impressed. When he came to power in 1933 he did two things : 1) started the construction of the Autobahn super highway interconnecting the major cities in the country; 2) instructed Austrian Ferdinand Porsche to develop a mass production car for his people. He dreamed that every family would have this car in their garage, so named it "Volkswagen", or "People’s car" in English. The car were to be produced by NSU.

According to Hitler’s requirement, Porsche designed a rear-engined car with an air cooled flat four engine. Using air cool because the dictator thought his kingdom would soon expanded to the African desert. The car was not particularly advanced, but it was designed with care, especially taking into considering reliability, economy, ease of production and maintenance. Now we know this is the Beetle, or what the American describe as Bug.

n 1941, the great factory was built (out of the mandatory deposit from German people) and pilot run was completed. The broke out of WW II transformed the factory into an arsenal. The Volkswagen car was also modified to military vehicle which was really used in the North African desert. The road car was put into shelf until the war ended.

After the war, the district where the factory located came under British forces’ control. The British examined the car and was not very interested to produce it in their home country, so they helped the German to rebuild the factory and renamed there to Wolfsburg. (Today Wolfsburg is still the headquarters of VW and the factory is the biggest car plant in the world.) Under the scarce of resources, the German gradually increase the production and even export to the US, where it arose a fever.

The Beetle was produced through the 90’s (in Mexican plant) and resulted in a total of 21,000,000 units built, which broke Ford Model T’s record of 15,000,000.

So far our story seems like the history of Beetle. In fact, Volkswagen was simply a one model company until the 70’s. It tried to find a new design to replace the car but every time failed - the 1500 in 1961, the 411 in 1968 and the front-wheel-drive K70 in 1970. The hatchback Polo, which was based on Audi 50, relieved some pressure, but the declining sales of Beetle eventually drove the company into a loss in 1974.

Luckily, the same year launched the Giogiaro-designed Golf (American called it Rabit), a car that saved the company and became another core model in the following 25 years with 4 generations introduced. Today, Golf is still the best selling car in Europe.

For most time of its history, Volkswagen group remained to be a largely German company, as it consisted of VW and Audi only. Since the 80s it started going internationalize - Seat was bought in the mid-80s, Skoda in the early 90s, then in 1998 Ferdinand Piech bought 3 brands in a row: Lamborghini, Bugatti and Bentley.

Volkswagen was born out of the will of Adolf Hitler. It is known that during his imprisonment in 1924 he read books about Henry Ford’s story and he was deeply impressed. When he came to power in 1933 he did two things : 1) started the construction of the Autobahn super highway interconnecting the major cities in the country; 2) instructed Austrian Ferdinand Porsche to develop a mass production car for his people. He dreamed that every family would have this car in their garage, so named it "Volkswagen", or "People’s car" in English. The car were to be produced by NSU.

According to Hitler’s requirement, Porsche designed a rear-engined car with an air cooled flat four engine. Using air cool because the dictator thought his kingdom would soon expanded to the African desert. The car was not particularly advanced, but it was designed with care, especially taking into considering reliability, economy, ease of production and maintenance. Now we know this is the Beetle, or what the American describe as Bug.

n 1941, the great factory was built (out of the mandatory deposit from German people) and pilot run was completed. The broke out of WW II transformed the factory into an arsenal. The Volkswagen car was also modified to military vehicle which was really used in the North African desert. The road car was put into shelf until the war ended.

After the war, the district where the factory located came under British forces’ control. The British examined the car and was not very interested to produce it in their home country, so they helped the German to rebuild the factory and renamed there to Wolfsburg. (Today Wolfsburg is still the headquarters of VW and the factory is the biggest car plant in the world.) Under the scarce of resources, the German gradually increase the production and even export to the US, where it arose a fever.

The Beetle was produced through the 90’s (in Mexican plant) and resulted in a total of 21,000,000 units built, which broke Ford Model T’s record of 15,000,000.

So far our story seems like the history of Beetle. In fact, Volkswagen was simply a one model company until the 70’s. It tried to find a new design to replace the car but every time failed - the 1500 in 1961, the 411 in 1968 and the front-wheel-drive K70 in 1970. The hatchback Polo, which was based on Audi 50, relieved some pressure, but the declining sales of Beetle eventually drove the company into a loss in 1974.

Luckily, the same year launched the Giogiaro-designed Golf (American called it Rabit), a car that saved the company and became another core model in the following 25 years with 4 generations introduced. Today, Golf is still the best selling car in Europe.

For most time of its history, Volkswagen group remained to be a largely German company, as it consisted of VW and Audi only. Since the 80s it started going internationalize - Seat was bought in the mid-80s, Skoda in the early 90s, then in 1998 Ferdinand Piech bought 3 brands in a row: Lamborghini, Bugatti and Bentley.

Where are you boy?

Headquarters and R&D center : Wolfsburg
Main plants in Germany : Wolfsburg (Lupo, Polo, Golf / Bora), Mosel (Golf / Bora, Passat), Emden (Passat)
Main plants in Spain : Pamplona (Polo)

How it fared?

Group sales (including all brands and commercial vehicles):
2006: 5.73 million units
2005: 5.243 million units
2004: 5.079 million units
2003: 5.016 million units
2002: 4.984 million units
2001: 5.080 million units

Introduction to the VW

Volkswagen has been the largest European car maker since the 70’s. Under the leadership of Ferdinand Piech, it expanded aggressively during the 90s. Apart from Audi and Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti were also absorbed into the empire. Piech, who served Porsche and Audi before, succeeded to put Audi onto rails to target BMW, upgraded the build quality and image of the Spanish Seat and Czech Skoda. However, his effort to put the Volkswagen brand against Mercedes did not take off, as shown in the poor sales of Phaeton, its first luxurious car. The Bugatti supercar project is another unwise decision - it makes no business sense to Volkswagen and it takes the company too much resources to overcome the technical difficulties to realize its 252mph target speed. Piech got over-ambitious in his latter days.

Piech was succeeded by ex-BMW boss Bernd Pischetsrieder in 2002. The latter rationalize the strategy. He abandoned the plan to move Volkswagen brand upmarket and concentrated on catching the market trend such as compact MPV and SUV. He delayed the Bugatti project, killed the "Super Passat" and Volkswagen W12 supercar. This seems clever than his predecessor.

Volkswagen group used to be a keen believer to platform sharing strategy. Almost all cars from its four mainstream brands shared the four common platforms. This inevitably made the cars too similar. Under the leadership of Bernd Pischetsrieder, the group splits into two management groups - the Volkswagen group (consists of VW, Skoda, Bentley and Bugatti) and Audi group (consists of Audi, Seat and Lamborghini). These intents to differentiate the characters of their cars - the VW group cars are more conservative, while the Audi group cars are sportier. The first sign was shown in the 2005 Passat, which switched from Audi A4 platform to Golf platform.

Companies owned by VW!

The number of companies owned by VW may not be too many,but the names are mind boggling!
Here we go-
Audi (Germany)
Skoda (Czech)
Seat (Spain)
Lamborghini (Italy)
Bugati (Italy)
Bentley (UK)
As you can see these companies are massive worldwide.Bentley maybe considered as the premium brand among these, with Lamborghini being considered as a premium+Sports brand.Audi and Skoda are its everyday brands.Lamborghini was acquired by Audi in 1999.Seat is located in Barcelona and is managed under Audi.Lambo in the other hand s established around Modena.
Audi being a German brand,Audi is the Jewel crown of the driving force behind the accomplished success of VW.Skoda was started out to compete with Ford and Opel,and this is because of its cut throat pricing.The labor costs involved are minimized and thats how the prices seem very low.The Skoda Octavia is a revamped Golf.The headquarters are located in Mlada Boleslav.Skoda has been made to compete with Sweden's Volvo,but it failed to make an impact.

Since Bentley (and once Rolls-Royce) was sold to Volkswagen in 1998, the latter has big plans for the once-ignored British sports luxurious marquee.The company,VW,had to face severe competition from BMW to acquire this brand but the n the managed to sneak through with a better bid.Volkswagen invested some £500 million to Crewe and the development of new models Continental GT and Continental Flying Spur. In 2004, the investment is finally paid off by strong sales and the first profit.Its located in Crewe,Creshire.

Passat?You bet!

VW Passat.Its just no ordinary car,its entering the Indian market with great fury.Priced at 22.35 lakhs,this car can roll over any car in its segment.Got a host of functions on the steering wheel,no body has to ever take their hands of the steering wheel for even a second!Even if you want to switch on the MP3 player!?Yes.Even that.

2.0 ltr engine,powered by 140 bhp,the Passat is picture perfect.And what better its practically perfect too..ah..almost,yup,almost perfect.Passat is Europe's biggest automobile manufacturer's 3 best selling product after the Golf and the Beetle,i.e..

320NM,0-100 in 9.8 secs and 206 kmph,this is quite a beauty,and a beast!

No wonder,apparantly,the Germans have to say "Ja" 11438 times before the Passat is rolled out of the VW plant..or is it 11348?!