Volkswagen
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Volkswagen
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| Introduction | Volkswagen
has been the largest European car maker since the 70 is. Under CEO Ferdinand
Piech is leadership, it expanded aggressively in the 90 is. Apart from Audi
and Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce / Bentley and Bugatti were also
absorbed into the great 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. The last mission is to put
the Volkswagen brand against Mercedes.
The success is mainly due to a radical platform sharing strategy. 4 platforms are shared among the 4 mass production brands : A-platform : Volkswagen Lupo,
Polo, Polo Classic, Seat Ibiza / Cordoba, Skoda Fabia
In other words, only the low volume Audi A2 is out of the strategy. There is criticism about the similarity between these models, but the group managed to conceal this well by different styling and trim. Also, the Volkswagen arm and Audi arm developed different engines in parallel - the former concentrates on narrow angle V engine while the latter favours 5-valve and turbocharging. Moreover, the group adopts re-designed suspensions and transmission for some sportier models. For instance, the Audi TT received a multi-link rear suspension, 6-speed manual and 4motion 4-wheel drive to make it completely feels different from lesser A3 and Golf. The cost saving via platform sharing let the company to upgrade build quality to the extent that even Mercedes and BMW are not easy to match. A comparison between Golf and A-class could clearly see that. Platform sharing also allows more niche / sport models to be introduced to improve company image - VW Beetle, Audi TT, A2 and all the S-models for Audi. After a couple of years of fast growth, Volkswagen group has become the most fearsome car maker in the world. In 1997 it produced 4.3 million cars and ranked fourth in the world. Now it is just overcome by the Renault-Nissan alliance but it is expected to take back the 4th position soon and may even challenge the no. 3, Toyota. In 1998, Dr. Piech opened his wallet again to purchase 4 famous brands in a row : Rolls Royce / Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. The Rolls Royce deal was not very successful because BMW eventually secure the right of the brand name from 2003 and afterwards via dirty tricks. That will leave the Crewe factory and Bentley to VW. However, it seems that Piech was only interested in Bentley from the beginning. Under his plan, Bentley will be used to target the top-of-the range Mercedes and BMW. Bugatti will be the final word in the prestige market. Lamborghini will be pumped up to compete against Ferrari. The group's ambition also spread to UK's engineering and racing consultant, Cosworth. Cosworth was splited into Cosworth Technology and Cosworth Racing, the former came under VW's control while the latter went to Ford. |
| Sales figure | The whole group produced 4.3 million cars in 1997. VW brand itself accounts for 60% of that. |
| Location | 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) |
| Brief History | 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 is 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.
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 Brazilian 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 is. 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. |
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In 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.