Are you familiar with the Fridolin? If so, hit the jump. If not, here’s the brief version of its history. Unhappy with its adorable but inadequate, two-cylinder Goggomobil Transporters, the German Postal Service approached Volkswagen and Westfalia in the early 60s, looking for a new interpretation of what it was looking for, namely “arbeitspsychologisch optimaler Ausstattung zu einem günstigen Anschaffungspreis.” This is a tough phrase to translate, but essentially it means “equipment optimized for the workplace psychology, at an affordable price,” and in 1963 that’s what the VW-Westalia team delivered. A mixture of Type 1 (Beetle), Type 2 (Bus) and Type 3 (Fastback/Squareback), the Type 147 was first shown to the German Post in 1963, and was quickly nicknamed “Fridolin” (an uncommon German boy’s name) apparently because workers said “it looks like a Fridolin.” Only 6,126 were built between 1964 and 1973, and they continue to enjoy a strong collector’s cachet (primarily as slammed campers, apparently). And now, Volkswagen wants to re-create the classic… for the future. 

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Attempts to ratchet-down the rhetoric in the Suzuki/Volkswagen row have failed. Suzuki launched a heavy missile in the direction of Wolfsburg. Suzuki will take the case to court, The Nikkei [sub] heard before a scheduled press conference in Tokyo. But fear not, Volkswagen gets a whole year to make up its mind. (Read More…)

Thirteen years after the Mercedes-Benz SLK reintroduced the hard top convertible, the novelty has once again begun to wear off in the face of concerns about cost, complexity, and curb weight. Even high-end manufacturers like Audi, BMW, and Jaguar have fit their latest convertibles with soft tops (albeit multi-layered ones to retain heat and keep out noise). In other words, the retractable hard top has not rendered ye olde ragtop obsolete. This isn’t to say that the retractable hard top is pointless, at least not when innovatively executed. The recently updated Volkswagen Eos remains the best. But would you want one?

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With the Passat moving from a poor-selling but Euro-premium sedan to a cheaper, more mass-market design, it was inevitable that the Passat CC “four door coupe” version would change as well. Unfortunately, in order to make it more similar to the new “Das Impala”-style Passat, VW had to really tone down the design. So much so, that you almost have to wonder who is going to buy this car on style alone… which is the whole point of having a “four door coupe” version of a sedan. But hey, at least it won’t be outselling the Passat anymore, as it has for much of the last several years. Mission accomplished?

Someone asked yesterday: “And what exactly is the difference between journalism and blog anyway?” Let me tell you a story:

Last Wednesday, I walked down the shop floor of Nissan’s humungous factory in Smyrna, Tennessee. A monitor pronounced that Volkswagen would end the year as the world’s largest automaker. My stomach knotted.

Two days before, Bloomberg had made the same proclamation: “VW Likely to Overtake Toyota as Top Carmaker in 2011, GM to Remain Second.”

I immediately warned the world that this is nonsense. But it didn’t stop the story from going viral. After all, who are you going to believe, a blogger at TTAC, or the professional journalists at Bloomberg?

The following day, I received a surprising email from someone very high up the food chain at Bloomberg … (Read More…)

Greenpeace is continuing its shakedown campaign against a surprising target: Volkswagen. The manufacturer of some of the world’s most fuel efficient cars finds itself in the cross-hairs of Greenpeace, an organization that changed from greening the planet to blackmailing deep-pocketed companies. (Read More…)

“I see no need for union representation,” says Adrian Leslie, line worker at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant. “We are being treated fairly here.”

If it would be him alone to decide, then any plans of the UAW to unionize Volkswagen Chattanooga are doomed. Leslie is not alone in his opinion, and the plans are doomed. (Read More…)

Divorce is a complicated matter. Sometimes, it takes a while for all involved that it’s over. Apparently, they are in that phase. If the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche is correctly informed, then VW CEO Martin Winterkorn wants to bring the matter to a conclusion until the end of this year – one way or the other. Says Wirtschaftswoche: (Read More…)

The admonitions by Lower Saxony’s premier to wash dirty laundry in the privacy of your office appear to bear fruit – at least for the time being. Volkswagen has agreed to a cease-fire in the war of words with Suzuki. (Read More…)

If the war of words and press releases between Suzuki and Volkswagen escalates into a legal duel, then the showdown will not happen in a court of law.  Germany’s Handelsblatt learned that the “secret cooperation agreement between Volkswagen and Suzuki specifies arbitration in case of differences.”

Commonly, arbitration is binding in these cases. It may not even come to that. David McAllister, Premier of Volkswagen’s home state Lower Saxony, which holds 20 percent of Volkswagen, intervened over the weekend. (Read More…)

Divorces usually get messy when there is money involved. The Suzuki vs. Volkswagen case is no exception. There are irreconcilable differences. Suzuki wants out, Volkswagen would like to swallow Suzuki whole. The rest are accusations and counter-accusations that are as interesting as divorce papers. In the last days, the Kabuki dace went into a new phase as both sides ratchet up their rhetoric. (Read More…)

The Volkswagen Group ended the first nine months of the year with worldwide deliveries up by 13.9 percent. Last year, Volkswagen had delivered 5.36 million units by September, this year, it is 6.11 million. If VW maintains the pace – and it has done so the whole year – then it could end the year with 8.4 million units. This would be in the same league as Toyota and GM in 2010. (Read More…)

It’s strange: When you talk to the big manufacturers in Japan, then they are worried by benchmarking Volkswagen and Hyundai. GM never comes up. When you talk to Bob Lutz, who has been re-hired as a part-time consultant to GM executives, then he is worried by benchmarking Volkswagen and Hyundai. Toyota never comes up. Bob Lutz thinks the Japanese have lost it. Germany’s Manager Magazin disturbed Lutz’s Swiss vacation with an interview, and Lutz, always good for explosive quotes, did not disappoint: (Read More…)

When Volkswagen finally decided to try this newfangled water-cooled engine idea, their first effort was the Audi 80-derived Passat. In North America, this car was badged as a Dasher, and it didn’t exactly break any sales records. Prior to finding this example in a Denver junkyard earlier in the week, I hadn’t seen a Dasher for at least a decade. (Read More…)