This New Series Where We Pick Just One Car To Represent A Carmaker Is Going To Be Rough

I don’t know why I keep coming up with recurring series ideas; I’m terrible about executing them. Remember Mercury Monday? I guess I’m pretty good about Cold Start, but that’s only because the day can’t really begin without that. The World’s Worst Cars Book redemption series? It’s still happening, but I can’t really keep it going daily, but it’ll be multiple times a week at least. And yet, even with all that in mind, I still find myself thinking of recurring series ideas, like this one: what if we had to pick one car to represent a given carmaker? Just one! This may sound easy at first, but I think it’s deceptively difficult.

Here’s what I’m thinking: for every existing brand of car, I’d like to pick one single model to represent that brand (obsolete and dead brands are fair game, too, btw), and it can be from any point in the history of that brand. The resulting car that is selected should somehow convey the character of that brand as it exists in the here and now, while also acknowledging the past that has made the brand what it is.

We’ll call this series There Can Be Only One as a tribute to the Highlander movies, and also because it’s an excuse to embed this clip:

The initial temptation for any given brand is likely to pick their most famous car, but that’s not necessarily representative of what the brand may actually be. For some companies, maybe it is: Porsche probably is best represented by a 911, and Jeep likely is best represented by a Wrangler – which Wrangler I’m not sure, but one of them. But I’m just spitballing.

I’m telling you, this is a tricky thing to do. For example, let’s look at a carmaker that you’d think would be easy: Volkswagen.

I think almost everyone’s first instinct would be to say the Beetle should be the representative car! It’s an absolute icon, everyone knows what it is by sight, over 20 million of them were made, it’s the car that started Volkswagen and made the whole company possible. But is the Beetle really representative of what Volkswagen has become?

I’m not so sure. Even from a technical standpoint, the old VW formula of air-cooled, rear-mounted horizontally-opposed engines only dominated the company’s car lineup for about about 40 years, from 1938 to 1978. From the mid-to-late 1970s on, Volkswagen’s technical DNA was transplanted from Auto Union/NSU, with liquid-cooled usually transverse (but not always) FWD drivetrains. So, looking at that, VW has been a primarily liquid-cooled/FWD company for 45 years, if we go from 1979 to the present, and even then I’m being pretty generous to the longevity of the air-cooled era.

So, while the original Beetle is an icon in its own right, is it a representative icon for what Volkswagen as a company currently is?

I think if I had to pick a car that represented what modern VW is while keeping an acknowledgement of their history, I might pick the Golf Mk.2.

The Golf Mk.2 I think still holds the key values VW started with – basic, useful cars for the people, the mandate of the Beetle and later the Golf – but it has the mechanical layout VW has adopted and stuck with. Also, it’s an updated design of the original Golf, changed a bit for the era it was in, a bit more rounded and with some better aerodynamic understanding but still with a firm hold on the original design concept, and I think these are traits that stick with VW. Where the old Beetle never changed its look, VW, like most automakers, makes major updates based on changing style and tech, and I think the Mk.2 Golf shows this process.

Also, the Mk.2 Golf, while a good car, didn’t have the legendary status of the original Beetle in terms of cult following or sales, and I think that’s true for modern VW as well: they’re not what they once were as far as sales or reputation goes, and whatever car represents the company should reflect that, too.

I think you could make the argument that the Mk.2 Golf represents the core values and concept of what Volkswagen currently is: on some level, still mass-market, practical, rational, usable cars for the people, but with some emphasis on drivability, a desire to push things upmarket, and a good amount of uncertainty about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

Does that make sense? I think a small car is still what VW fundamentally is about, even if they make so many SUVs and crossovers at the moment. And I think this era of VW bridges their past and present, even if it mostly ignores the early history of the company – but that’s what the real company does, too, if we’re honest.

This is just a taste of what I mean. Picking one car to represent a carmaker’s ethos and character and core values and everything like that is a monumental, maybe impossible task, but I think it could be fun to try. So, I’m going to see if we can do one of these a week, and I’m going to try to see to it that it’s not just me doing these, because I think our other writers will have strong opinions here. Like, David should write the Jeep one, and Mercedes should write the Smart one, and I think Thomas said he wanted to write Lambo and so on. I’m open to guest writers, too, so if anyone is passionate about a particular marque, now’s the time to speak up!

And even better, let’s end all of these with a list: the cars we have chosen to represent a particular brand. I’ll get it started, I suppose, with my VW pick:

THE LIST OF THE ONLY ONES

1. Volkswagen: Golf Mk. 2 (1983-1992)

I’m excited to see what happens here. Oh, and suggestions for brands and their Only Ones and opinions on whether I picked poorly or whatever are of course welcome in the comments, which I hope will be vigorous.

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