VW's Secret Weapon: Heritage
With the world’s established automakers facing increased competition from ascendant Korean car brands, and with even more competition from Chinese automakers just over the horizon, the key to continued success is leveraging every single advantage that’s been accumulated in the past. Traditionally those advantages have been technical, whether in engine technology, suspension set-up know-how, or long-established relationships with suppliers. But as technical advantages fade, brands are having to cash in on their other, less tangible assets… including heritage.
Few brands have the kind of mass-appeal heritage assets that VW has, as witnessed by the profound success of the previous-gen New Beetle. But rather than limiting its advantages to a single model, VW envisions an entire range of heritage-inspired models which will leverage vast platform commonality into passion-inspiring cult cars. The next of these “cult cars,” after the new New Beetle: an electric mini-MPV based on the Bulli concept, to be built in Puebla for the 2014 model-year. VW design boss Walter Da Silva tells Autocar
As a designer, I am convinced by this idea. We don’t have a space for another conventional MPV, but this one would be desirable on a different level, combining practicality with the heritage appeal.
Meanwhile, VW isn’t the only brand with this idea. Facing slack sales and an uncertain place in the European market, Citroen has bet big on its “anti-retro” DS line to revitalize its flagging fortunes. But if brands are increasingly leveraging their pasts to bolster their futures, why aren’t any American brands betting big on retro? After all, if anyone in the global car game can look to the past as being better than the present, isn’t it Detroit?
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Love it, though things like UP! are probably VW's future - not bound by the past, and incredibly "Fresh".... I'd love one of these for the "family truckster", though it wouldn't replace my Audi daily driver.
All too often “heritage” cars have been little more than styling exercises linked to trite, feel good marketing. The trouble with this approach is that sales will do well only as long as the styling and marketing stay trendy. The New Beetle is a good example. It captured the look of the original but none of the underlying qualities that made VW so legendary in the US during the 1960s. Much the same goes for the current batch of pseudo-pony cars, which resemble a high school quarterback . . . with 25 years of flab and wrinkles added. Contrast that with the Miata, another heritage design (stolen from the British) that has had enviable staying power. The Miata’s styling has been consistently strong but the key factor in overcoming stiff competition from the likes of the Pontiac Solstice has been offering a better all-around ownership experience. The new Citroen DS was disappointing to me not so much because it didn’t look retro, but because it flagrantly disregarded Citroen’s DNA, e.g., ground-breaking technical advances and aerodynamics. Automakers who offer heritage designs tend to be those who have run too far away from their past. When VW switched to FWD in the 1970s it completely repudiated the basic look of their RWD era. It took VW a while to realize how dumb that was.