VW Trumped Again - Now By Nissan?

it's not so much VW in general because they have cars like the Polo and Lupo overseas, but VW in the US just doesn't seem to be interested in filling that market segment.

I've always suspected that foreign car makers, and European makers in particular, are essentially forced to sell pimped-up cars in order to justify their unavoidably higher prices.

BMW has a 100 series in Europe and Mercedes/Daimler (what are they called, anyway?) has a really neat A series that you'll probably never see in the states because they don't fit in market segment they either want to occupy, or are forced to occupy.

Remember when a BMW 1600 or 2002 (or even a 320i) was a relatively cheap, stripped down shoebox on wheels with interesting performance characteristics?

That was also was my impression.

Let's take a Polo for example. In Europe it will cost you something like 15k euro (starting from ~10). Convert to dollars (*1.2) add shipping (say some $1000), import tax (AFAIK 10%) and you land at about $20k. Who will buy such a car? They also will have costs for safety and pollution certification, maybe some changes in design, training for meachanics, advertising etc .... And the small cars do not have big margins to go down.

So, in order to be profitable in the USA you will need to move the production to the Mexico or Brasil. Which will not happen overnight. Or you can start selling VW Fox which is already made in brasil, but I doubt the americans would buy them.

Both BMW 1er and Mercedes A-klasse are of the size of VW Golf, and more expensive. For MB and Mercedes it is of course a step down, and not just in size. Those cars feel really cheap (by the usual standards of bmw or mb).

Hmm... I do not remember :) BMW allways was a premium manufacturer ;) "One dollar" 20-30 years ago had a completely different value.

I disagree. The 1er and A-klasse are more like metro smart cars.

The 1600 or 2002 body style was indeed a turning point. My uncle had these types of cars and also a 2000 automatic.

No way. I've seen both in Mexico and they are way bigger.

Maybe in Mexico, ( I wouldn't get caught dead in that country) but when I was in Germany the A class was just like the Smart Car. You sit the SAME way...

But, the VW Polo is made in Brazil too...

T.-

Humm, looks very, very similar to the Mazda 3s I bought last month. From the slope of the roof, the front and rear overhangs, even the color, its close. If that is the case, then VW already has something in that segment. More to the point, they pretty much invented that segment. Can anyone say Golf?

It would be nice if they made a stripper Golf. Hand crank windows, rubberized vinyl floor, tough tweed fabric, minimal sound deadening, etc.

David Glos

Then, I would suggest you take a look at them. In fact, they are three classes bigger than smart :) Let's look at the numbers:

VW Golf5 1.6 4204mm long, 1759mm wide, fully loaded - 1760kg BMW 116i 4227mm long, 1751mm wide, fully loaded - 1705kg. Mercedes A170 3858mm long, 1764mm wide, fully loaded - 1705kg Smart 2500mm long, 1537mm wide, fully loaded - 980kg

So, they are about the same size, and much bigger than smart. MB is shorter because of it "sandwitch" body construction.

True. There were rumors of them bringing the sedan version at least to the US a few years ago but I guess that plan never materialized.

Canada I believe has some stripper models that we do not.

well, maybe not that stripper :)

I don't know if buyers will go for a rubber floor and less sound deadening. People might give up a few things but going that Spartan would be a stretch.

You can. Outside the US. Its called a Golf Format. 1.6liter, 100HP, power nothing, less than US$12000.

Sounds interesting, although still a little higher priced than I would have hoped for. Some years back, we had an 84 Rabbit(Golf) with manual everything. It was a rather easy car to work on and parts were dirt cheap. That last point certainly doesn't hold true for my 94 VR6 Passat.

That said, it might be helpful to bring a small number here to get the first ever buyers interested in VW. If they got a couple hundred pounds out of the car, with the smaller engine, and removal of automated do-dads like window regulators, 100 HP would be fine.

David Glos

Toyota, Nissan, Honda and others have seen the wave of the future and are doing something about it. I hope VW management wakes up and alters their course as well. At least they are not flooding the market with gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks typical in the inventory (make that UNSOLD inventory) of GM and Ford. So there is hope.

The new Golf 1.4L GT w/ the TSI engine was tested recently and got better mileage (39 mpg overall) and acceleration than the 2.0L. But a supercharged and turbocharged engine just means more trouble in the long run, to me at least; I don't need 170hp in a Golf.

Anyone interested can see a short review here:

Are those imperial gallons, or what?

They also have the VW Pointer in Mexico, whose closest analog I can think of is the Toyota Echo.

I'd be all over a US Pointer or Polo, particularly a hatchback version.

...Sean.

Well, VW was about 5 years late in jumping on the SUV bandwagon, so I suspect they'll be about the same when it comes to small & cheap.

...Sean.

There is a pretty good "real life" example of what you can achieve in this direction. It is called Dacia (Renault) Logan.

They basically took the same route you propose. Designed the car from scratch for the "third world", to be as cheap as possible, uses many standard renault parts, produced in the Romania, where people earn maybe $300/month. For example, it has no real door handles, just some "holes" inside the doors, in order to be able to close doors from inside.

And it still costs $6000 with a 1.4 engine and with _no_ extras (and without shipping i think). You want an ABS, 1 (one) Airbag, conditioner and a reasonable 1.6 engine? No problem, but then it will cost you about a $9000.

I would say it is _very_ expensive for such a car. Used Jetta4 would be a much better choice.