There are no easy CEO jobs in the automotive world, merely narrow degrees of extreme difficulty. Right near the top of the difficulty-o-meter is running Volkswagen. Not only is the automaker gigantic, it’s just the right mix of family-, state-, and publicly-owned to be an absolute nightmare to lead. There are also the enormous expectations that come with being the second largest automaker in the world, plus all the regional politics.
The longstanding critique of Volkswagen is that, as an institution, it’s been slow to recognize its own weaknesses. Oliver Blume, the current head of both Volkswagen and Porsche, stepped into the job at approximately the worst time. Can he make the best of it? There are some clues in a recent interview that suggest he might just have the right mindset to pull it off.
If the Morning Dump had existed ten years ago when Mary Barra took over GM’s top job, I’d have probably said something similar about the steep challenges she faced. While the company isn’t in perfect shape, it’s vastly improved in that time, and Barra deserves a lot of credit for it. In lieu of credit, she received nearly $30 million last year. Between the credit and the cash, always take the cash.
The United States is not exactly making friends around the world right now, which risks pushing some close allies further into the hands of China. Also, the current administration has been taking shots at BMW for… making cars in the United States? Weird times.
‘We’re Not Presumptuous And Know Everything’ Says VW CEO
I once took a class on the modern presidency in college, and what’ll always stick with me is something the professor said the first time we met. He asked the room of kids barely old enough to vote if they thought they could be a future POTUS. A few students raised their hands. I did not.
His advice was that they should aim to be good presidents, not great presidents, because the only way to be a great president is to face a terrible crisis. Lincoln, Washington, and FDR all had lives defined by wars and turmoil.
In that sense, Volkswagen’s Oliver Blume is in a good position to be a great CEO. When he took on the top job at VW, he was already CEO of Porsche, which, let’s face it, is the better job. Porsche is a beloved brand with huge upside potential and the ability to squeeze nice margins out of custom work. Volkswagen, in 2022, was a tangle of mixed priorities coming off of a self-inflicted crisis (Dieselgate) and an exogenous one (the pandemic). That’s to say nothing of the challenges of electrification and falling market share in China.
I’ve written this before, but VW in the Piëch era produced some amazing cars at the expense of recognizing its own limitations. The VW approach to everything was to toss engineers at it, assuming the eventual superiority of its decision-making and engineering. In the key areas of electrification and software, this approach failed. Now it’s up to Blume to clean up this mess.
With his not-quite-purchase of Rivian, Blume showed he was willing to concede defeat if it meant creating a better product. Subsidiary Scout’s shift to EREV was another sign that the automaker could be flexible in a way past VW regimes were not (famously, VW dismissed hybrids because they insisted diesel was the way, which ultimately led to them having to cheat emissions tests to make the untrue suddenly true).
Has that philosophy taken hold? Germany’s Manager Magazine (which is German for “Manager Magazine”) has a long interview with Blume in which he talks about the various challenges facing him and the company. It’s a lot of CEO-speak, as expected, but there are a couple of answers that struck me as positive developments this morning.
Specifically, the interviewer harped a lot on the idea that VW was partnering with different firms for seemingly overlapping objectives, including self-driving and electric vehicles:
Anyone who looks at your key decisions of the past two years gets the impression that you’re losing confidence in your own strength. There are numerous alliances with smaller partners, including XPeng in China and the US electric car manufacturer Rivian.
This brings us to the question of what Volkswagen actually needs to do itself. We continue to manage our core competencies entirely internally – 100 percent of the time. We acquire other things if the added value is greater. And for some technologies, we seek out strong partners and develop them jointly. On the one hand, we manufacture battery cells ourselves in order to build up a high level of expertise and leverage economies of scale. At the same time, we work with regional partners to be more flexible. In software, we develop key applications ourselves and have strong partners for architectural elements.
And then the former teacher becomes a student?
We combine our strengths. Since the Eastern and Western worlds differ significantly when it comes to software, we need different approaches. We can’t possibly do everything ourselves. We’re not presumptuous and know everything. We learn from everywhere. That’s also my expectation of our teams.
Even with the Google translation, I think that’s quite clear. “We can’t possibly do everything ourselves. We’re not presumptuous and know everything. We learn from everywhere” doesn’t seem like an acceptable answer to any question in the Piëch era, even if it might have been the one the company has long needed.
I am often critical of CEOs here, so I feel like it’s important to point out when one of them seems to have the right idea.
Mary Barra Got $29.5 Million In Compensation Last Year
General Motors is an extremely solid company these days, and CEO Mary Barra is being rewarded for it, according to this Automotive News report:
Mary Barra received compensation worth $29.5 million last year as CEO of General Motors, a 5.9 percent increase as the automaker achieved strong earnings and executed on key business goals.
Barra’s base salary of $2.1 million was unchanged from 2022 and 2023, according to an April 11 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her stock awards rose 33 percent to $19.5 million, but options dropped to zero from $4.9 million in each of the past two years. Nonequity incentive plan compensation increased 27 percent to $6.7 million.
GM’s performance in 2024 was “a clear reflection of the successful efforts of our extraordinary executive leadership team, led by Ms. Barra, to drive our strategic transformation forward and invest in the business to grow value for shareholders,” Wesley Bush, chair of GM’s compensation committee, said in the filing.
Considering Carlos Tavares got $23.9 million last year, that almost seems like a deal.
How Many Times Can America Lose The Vietnam War?
If you think about it, America has been on an impressive streak of turning enemy combatants into beneficial trading partners. Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam were all hostile nations at one point. Vietnam, in particular, has become an important balance to Chinese trade (or at least, direct Chinese trade).
Welp, so much for that. From Nikkei Asia:
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in communist comrade Vietnam on Monday and called for defending a multilateral trade system that is being rocked by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Trade wars and tariff wars have no winners, and protectionism has no way out,” Xi wrote in an article posted on the Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of the Vietnamese Communist Party, ahead of his visit. “We must firmly defend the multilateral trading system, firmly maintain the stability of global production and supply chains, and firmly maintain an open and cooperative international environment.”
Xi was greeted at the airport by Vietnamese President Luong Cuong, who was appointed in October. It is rare for a president to receive a foreign VIP at the airport. These high-level airport receptions are usually hosted by government ministers or senior party members, as was the case with Trump’s visits in 2017 and 2019.
As Nikkei Asia reports, this is the second trip to Vietnam in under 18 months.
Why Is The President’s Trade Advisor Attacking BMW?
BMW has been in South Carolina for over 30 years and has proven to be one of the best corporate citizens in our state.
Their presence is a major benefit to the South Carolina economy and it is much appreciated.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 8, 2025
What? Why?
Ok, a little backstory here, which is that President Trump’s main trade advisor, Peter Navarro, has been taking shots at automakers for no obvious reason. Early last week, he called Tesla merely “an assembler” of cars. I missed this, because I was focused on the Musk thing, but in that same interview he also took a swing at BMW on CNBC saying:
“And the thing like, you take automobiles, what we’re doing now is a scam like BMW comes to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and all we do is assemble German transmissions and autos… It’s like they get all the good jobs. They get all the good profits.”
The whole interview is kinda unhinged, claiming that auto plants are going to get built in months and not years. In addition to a response from South Carolina’s senator, there’s also the response from BMW:
Plant Spartanburg is an eight million-square-foot facility with three body shops, two paint shops, two assembly halls, and a metal stamping facility for body panels. More than $14.8 billion has been invested since 1992, and 11,000 highly skilled associates assemble 1,500 BMW Sports Activity Vehicles daily—400,000 a year—with parts from hundreds of suppliers across the United States. Our BMW X models are among the most complex vehicles in the world, and they are highly desired by customers everywhere.
The plant in Spartanburg has been an important location in our global BMW Group production network for over 30 years. It is also our largest plant worldwide, serving domestic and international markets with the highly acclaimed BMW X models. In 2024, the plant exported approximately 225,000 BMWs, with an export value exceeding $ 10 billion, making it the largest automotive exporter by value in the United States. Since 2014, the plant in South Carolina has exported over 2.7 million BMW vehicles, representing approximately two-thirds of its total production, with an export value of $ 104 billion.
We export more vehicles from the United States than we import into the country. Plant Spartanburg generates a total economic impact of $26.7 billion for our state, supporting nearly 43,000 jobs and $3.1 billion in wages and salaries.
What a weird time.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Hey, alright, it’s Clairo, the pride of Middlesex County with “Sexy to Someone” off her latest album. This video has a Yeti, which is cool, though it would be better if it were a Škoda Yeti.
The Big Question
How you feeling about Volkswagen right now?
I’m feeling hopeful for VW at the moment. My current garage is a Mk 6 GTI and a B6 Passat wagon, and I’m currently in the market for a low mileage diesel Touareg. Unfortunately VW doesn’t make 2 of those 3 vehicles anymore, but I really hope they can get their act together and make something I’d actually consider buying new.
Until they actually fix their shitty interior designs I’m not touching a VW with a ten foot pole. And no, backlighting the stupid capacitive volume slider does not count as fixing it.
Oh my gosh, I hate VW’s UI so much right now. Who even came up with this garbage and how plastered on brake fluid were they?
Can someone let BMW know this isn’t something to brag about?
You never really know with VW, just when you think they’re in the midst of an ID.Disaster (thanks Cammisa), they throw an ID.Every1 concept.
It all depends…
Seeing I may or may not work for a company owned by VW…. They are doing great nothing wrong here nope nothing at all all is great. I love VW *gets dragged out to never be seen again*
I don’t really think about VW at all. They make a few good-looking vehicles (the Atlas is handsome in a bland way, and the new Tiguan is nice for the class), but nothing I’d be excited about owning.
Maybe the stereotype of German cars being unreliable is too deeply ingrained in me.
And I have to agree with Elon, Ron Vara doesn’t know shit about fuck. Clearly, he has zero knowledge of how manufacturing works. We really are living in a timeline where the dumbest of the dumb are in charge.
If the Germans built them simple and bulletproof instead of complex and expensive/difficult to fix I’d like German cars more. As it is I can’t see owning a German car without a factory warranty.
Same. I watch a lot of WWII stuff, their tanks were the same way. Instead of building a simple, mass-produced tank that could be fixed with a few hand tools (like a Sherman or T34), they built endless specialized varieties that were overly complicated with bespoke parts that made field fixes nearly impossible.
A King Tiger was definitely a lot more impressive than a Sherman, but it was a very large paperweight if anything went wrong. Meanwhile, GI’s could swap Sherman drivetrains in mere hours and keep them going.
I’ve heard the same about our equipment in the N. Africa campaign. Our stuff leaked so much oil that it did a better job keeping the sand out 🙂
Yep. Or complaining the Sherman was a hunk of junk because he and his crew had six shot out from under them. Dude, the Sherman must be okay if it protected your skin well enough to get out once it was disabled!
Except that getting a Sherman “shot out from under you” often meant you were dead. But we had a shitload of Shermans, and also a shitload of people for crews, so it worked (if you weren’t one of those crews). It might cost 4 or 5 Shermans to take out a Tiger, but we had them, and Germany didn’t.
This has always been my biggest hold up with them. If I’m going to suffer through German car ownership I’m going to do it for something that gets my heart pumping…not a goddamn anonymous crossover that’s at the bottom of its class.
the last simple and bulletproof German car made was the MKVI VW Jetta with the 2.slow and 5 spd manual. My wife still owns her. It’s only had a TPMS light and that’s it
Of course you know that Ron Vera doesn’t really exist other than in the head of Navarro, right?
Yes. His alter ego that he cites as a financial “expert”. You can’t make this stuff up.
It’s even worse that Ron Vera is an anagram for Navarro.
And his boss is John Barron.
I miss quirky/fun VW. I miss premium VW. Now, fun/premium VW will live on in Rivians and Scouts.
Yeah — for a while in the ’90s or so, VW had gone from budget superstars (hell yeah, Beetles and Things) to building a reputation for making nice cars that felt more upmarket than their peers. While they’ve still got some fine-ish models (with terrible UI), years of dumbing down and cheapening things for the American market has taken its toll.
My view on VW’s success lies in Stellantis’ success.
If the EREV Ramcharger succeeds, then I think Scout will be the brand to save VW in North America.
If the Ramcharger is a flop, it calls into question if any of the Scout models will sell.
VW proper needs some hybrids, cause their EVs are expensive as they are lackluster in performance for said price.
True, but the Ram brand has a certain demographic, and that demographic may be far less likely to go for an EREV. I really hope the Scouts succeed. They look really good.
Another very real question will be whether the economy is in a place where people feel good about spending the money on these things.
Both valid points. I’ll give my predictions the disclaimer than I’m just a lush former diesel tech from Canada, so market predictions are not my strong suit.
I hope they are really thinking things through. I like hearing that they are taking a good look at themselves, and I like that they’ve realized that they should make more of the configurations people want (they started incentivizing dealers to wrap the monochrome inventory of ID.Buzz, showing they realize that people want the colorful version).
I’m not going to go and buy a VW just based on slight hope, but I am cautiously optimistic.
I’m pretty sure there aren’t any American factories, and probably Western factories, who make everything from raw iron, steel, and plastic to the finished assembled product.
River Rouge might have done something close to that, but probably nobody else in America.
Every factory is an assembly plant, putting together components obtained from suppliers.
I worked for contract furniture manufacturer in 90/00s that was completely ‘vertically integrated’ in the US, except for the cast metal parts that were made in company’s own foundry just across the Mexican border. Decade later they had shut the Mexican foundry down and started importing cast stuff from China cuz it was cheaper.
Did they grow their own trees and make their own fabric?
Tesla is probably the most vertically integrated US based carmaker. They’ve got nothing on Hyundai or BYD. IIRC Hyundai did announce a more vertically integrated plant recently.
How do I feel about VW? I’ve generally been a big VW fanboy, but they seemed to have completely lost any of their European-ness here in the US. Yes, they’ve pretty much always Americanized their products for our market, but they at least always had some level of je ne sais quois about them. It could have meant more refinement, more premium-ness, better dynamics, or just flat out different from most of the market; everything was generally different and (even if marginally) better. But now they just seems to have gotten so Americanized here that they don’t really offer anything unique anymore with exception of lackluster reliability and generally more expensive parts and repair for a milquetoast product these days. At least in the past the higher cost, worse reliability, and more expensive parts used to get you something; now you’re left something like the Atlas that still has those downsides while also being flat out not competitive.
My sentiments exactly. I still own four of them, but nothing made after 2016. They’re not even on my shopping list anymore. My newest car is a 2022 Miata, which would have been a Golf R had the VW used knobs and buttons. Now, even if they fix the interior it will remain off my list because they dropped the manual transmission.
A long time ago I had a 2000 “New Jetta” TDI. The interior was so many light years ahead of anything else at the time. It was a great road-trip car for a small family and was reasonably affordable to maintain if you knew the basics.
If it’s between an Atlas and a Ford Explorer the decision’s probably coming down to what has more cash on the hood. Same with a Jetta vs a Nissan Sentra or Hyundai Elantra.
I’ve always liked Clairo. I find her music to be very calming and she seems to take a little step forward with each release. She’s not necessarily reinventing the wheel but she’s still really young and she’s already doing a good job honing her craft. Sometimes you just want some low fi indiepop and she always delivers the goods.
Anyway I guess I’m glad Volkswagen has been owning up to all of their catastrophic fuck ups? I legitimately really liked the brand for most of my life and when it was time for me to get my first new car I sprinted to buy a GTI…which I sold within 2 years. My sister felt similarly to me, sprinted to buy a Tiguan at the same time, and sold it in about the same timeframe.
Their QC and reliability is unforgivably bad in this day and age, and the point I’ve always made about them remains…if I’m going to deal with the of foibles of German car ownership it’s going to be for something with a luxury badge and a lot of performance. I could deal with an AMG, M car, or Porsche of some sort being a pain in the ass because of the driving, dealership, and let’s be real here…clout experience.
I’m not putting up with that shit with an affordable car when I can go buy a Toyota, Honda, etc. that will give me 0 headaches. It makes no sense to me and I legitimately have no idea who their current cars appeal to outside of brand loyalists and folks who want a GTI or Golf R. None of their products are particularly competitive, they’ve gone with German anti-styling across their lineup, their technology and infotainment systems are a laughing stock, etc.
Why the fuck would you buy one outside of the spicy Golfs? You’re getting a less reliable car that’s more expensive to own and significantly more frustrating to interact with than all of its competitors. If you really love Volkswagen and have an emotional attachment to the brand then I suppose I get it, but their cars just aren’t good anymore.
That being said the ID Buzz looks great. They’re popping up all over the DC area. I’d never consider one due to the infuriating interface/haptic hell world interior and the fact that they’re $25,000 overpriced, but they are charming…and I think that’s one of the things VW has to get back to. People don’t think VW and think of a gray over black Atlas or ID.something.
They think of a Beetle, a van, plaid interiors, hot hatches, convertible Golfs with the breadbasket roll bar, a Thing if they’re freaky, etc. The fact that they went away from all of that is insane to me. If they bring quirky VW back, ditch the nightmare tech situation, and find a way to make their vehicles at least passably reliable I think a lot of customers will find their way back.
Good take. Adding to this is that dropping the manual on the spicy Golfs was a huge mistake.
Yeah I really have no idea why they did that. They claimed it was due to emissions but if they really wanted to keep it around they could’ve found a way.
My other complaint is that they should have kept up with offering the Spektrum cars. A paint to sample economy car is such a cool idea, that people would probably pay for
My sister has had a string of newer VW’s, all bought new. They have let her down many times (including the time one died on trip to DC (4mo old car) and they had rent another car to get home and them come back to pick it up), yet she keep going back for more.
Last year though, she bought a Honda CRV Hybrid.
Agreed on Clairo. “Bags” was such a great song, and the duet she does with Sasami on Sasami’s new album is killer.
“How do you feel about Volkswagen right now?”
Angry that I can’t easily get parts for my 2001 that is rotting before my eyes, because they were so unpopular in the US (until the Atlas, at least) that it’s nearly impossible to find donor cars in junkyards.
Everything I need to replace tends to break three additional things, so at some point you have to just give up.
I know this case is a pretty rare one to complain about, but it sticks with you. I completely understand why Japanese marques ended up winning the US and forcing everyone else to up their game — because most people want “good and reliable” and not “great and fickle”
Maybe it’s a geographic thing—here in the SF Bay Area, Pick-N-Pull yards are overflowing with early 21st century VWs, though lately we seem to have moved past the A4/B5 cars and are seeing more A5/B6-era stuff.
How do I feel about VW. I have owned several and I feel like I would love to own another but I want it to be a cheap simple durable hatchback. I just think that as the car industry changes significantly that VW should go back to its roots.
That BMW shot resonates with me in AL — where Hyundai and Mercedes build the bulk of their US products (plus quite a few for ROW) and Honda builds all of their vans, “truck,” and main crossover. Plus smaller operations from Toyota and Mazda, in addition to counless suppliers. All of this in a place that had no auto manufacturing prior to about 1997.
Here’s the formula on how these plants work:
Fast forward about 10-15 years and the non-partisan economic studies call these experiments a win, almost across the board. Some estimates are that 70-90% of the total economic benefit is conferred to the factory location, with only the minority going up to the parent company’s country. This is a huge boost to GDP at every level, and as we’re learning now, a great hedge against currency swings or tariffs.
Yeah, this is correct 9/10 times.
Imagine how much better it would be if they were unionized and workers made more than a McDonalds worker.
They do, that’s why it worked. You can’t lure a union machinist making $20/hr to your non-union shop unless you can offer better wage/benny combos. That’s pretty much what they did (the only serious union rumblings happened nearly 3 decades into it).
Same here in TN. Nissan radically changed my hometown area.
Lot better use of ‘tax incentives’ than building another damn ball stadium for billionaire owners!
Oh but we might get a Super Bowl in 15 years! Totally worth it!
Maybe if I start saving now, this taxpayer will be able to afford a ticket.
Not to worry – season ticket holders will be giving them away again once it becomes obvious the Titans are heading to another 3 win record!
touche!
Are we really surprised at exactly how dumb Peter Navarro is? Yes, the Trump admin is full of complete morons, but he is on a complete other level of dumb; even Trumpers think the guy is an idiot and that is saying something. How does the old adage go? “If brains were dynamite, Peter Navarro couldn’t even blow his own nose.”
Trump letting Navarro run around like a chihuahua that’s slipped its leash yapping about a foreign company that’s done exactly what he claims to want to the benefit of pretty much everyone is perfectly indicative of how this administration does “business”.
I think old VW’s are very cool. Newer ones, i believe, are always broken in some way so thats not so cool.
The old ones are always broken too but they get a pass b/c they are old.
As I stare at my 86 cabriolet under its winter driveway coat. Someday it will be perfect again (if it ever was) and I will drive into the sunset it beckons. For the money invested I could have a nice Bug Eye Sprite
“Charmingly broken” is better than “ugh fuck another CEL.”
How do I feel about VW? Optimistic for their future now that they admit that they have a problem. Partnering with Rivian was a big step towards getting the help they need. I still stand by a much earlier comment that they will become the global EV leader in 10+ years. VW will be smaller than they are today, but they will wear the EV crown until Toyota gets their act together.
Admitting they have a problem is only the first step. Coming up soon should be apologizing to everyone they’ve wronged and somehow I don’t see VW doing that. A decade from now they’ll still be barely hanging on in the U.S. and more and more of their customer base will migrate to probably…Subaru?
“How you feeling about Volkswagen right now?”
Considering they’re currently getting customers to split the cost to wrap their own ID Buzzs’, I’m feeling pretty comical about them.
“How you feeling about Volkswagen right now?”
Very little. Between stupidly high prices, questionable to abysmal build quality, Dieselgate, EA charger problems and PG&E+ level pricing I haven’t been interested in US market VW stuff for a long time.
Although they DID send me a free bottle of their Gewürz Ketchup so I do feel some thanks for that (and to Autopian for the tip)
When I was shopping for a compact sporty sedan a few months back, I checked out the Jetta GLI Autobahn. It drove really well but I just couldn’t justify paying $34k for a car that hasn’t had any substantial updates in six-plus years and was roundly blasted for having a low-rent interior even then. Not to mention that I tend to keep cars for a while and owning an out-of-warranty VW product isn’t exactly appealing.
What did YOU think of the interior though? It’s your money after all. Was it 90’s GM quality bad or just kinda dated?
Low rent isn’t a bad thing if that means old school, dead nuts reliable physical switchgear instead of fancy but failure prone and distracting touchscreen stuff. Harder cheap plastics wear better than the soft touch that might well turn to goo in a few years. Old school physical keys over push to steal ignition, cloth instead of leather, etc, fewer options you don’t want and will never use, etc.
A lot of folks here wax poetic how the 90s was peak car in part because of the simpler interiors.
Honestly, it was… fine. Not great and not terrible. I don’t mind hard plastics at all, and the ones in the Jetta didn’t bother me. The 2025 I was looking at had the capacitive HVAC controls and steering wheel “buttons”, which I didn’t like. At all. The ambient lighting was nice, though. I wound up in a Kia Forte GT with the GT2 package, which was $9k less than the Jetta since they were trying to blow out the leftover 2024s. The interior in the Kia is in the ballpark (ventilated seats FTW), and the physical controls for everything (you practically never need to use the touchscreen) suits me better as does having actual gauges instead of simulated ones. The Kia isn’t quite as quick as the Jetta and the DCT isn’t as smooth but it makes some nice noises and it’s pretty damn fun to throw around. The Kia has a better warranty over the long haul as well. It was a pleasant surprise to find something I really enjoy driving at the low end of my price range as opposed to the upper end.
Fair.
First sentence is incorrect.
“There are no easy CEO jobs in the automotive world, merely narrow degrees of extreme difficulty.”
Take Carlos Tavares. Dude pretty much sucked at his job. So Stellantis fired him. Except they didn’t. They paid him $12.5 million to stop working.
Look, even I can’t screw up a company as badly as Carlos did, but if my company was willing to pay me $12.5 million to stop working, there would be rubber left in the parking lot before my badge hit the floor.
Because I can’t imagine an easier way to become rich than to be an ex-CEO of a major company. Get paid to not work. You don’t even need to worry about being good as a CEO before you get paid to quit.
They could fire me for half that!
Sounds like VW had a “ come to Sgt Shultz “ meeting.
When I’m feeling old it’s nice to get moments like these where I can say “I should be too young to get that one”.
The CEO of General Motors has the same name as Ford’s best inline six?
Coincidence? I think not!
Didn’t realize her name was Mary Ford 300
In terms of horespower potential, Mary Barra takes the win. As far as parts availability in the US, Mary Ford 300 takes the win there so it depends on what your looking for in a GM CEO/engine combination.
perfect!
How you feeling about Volkswagen right now?
They exist
There’s a saying about leisure boats that applies equally to Volkswagens:
“The two best days of a boat owner’s life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it”.
The same as always, which is to say that nothing of value would be lost if the company and brand were wiped from existence.
Such is the depths of my rage at their QC on the Mk IVs.