http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/14/vw-planning-new-ultra-low-cost-model-to-ta...

Interesting article Greg. I don't think VW needs to go down this path.

It's amazing that people still think the original Beetle was a 'cheap and cheerful' car. Maybe in America, compared with the big US cars of the '50s and '60s, but NOT in Australia. Our Deluxe Beetle was an expensive car - around £950, when you could have bought a six-cylinder Holden for less than £1100. Cars like the Morris Minor, Renault 750, Ford Anglia, Austin A30 and Morris Mini 850 were all cheaper than the Volkswagen. The Standard Beetle was introduced in 1962 as a 'budget priced' model - £849 to start with and later discounted to £799 - but it never sold as well as the Deluxe.

The Passat was more expensive than the air cooled models in 1974 when it was released here. The 1300 Beetle was $2,569 and the Superbug L was $2,798. The Passat 1300 was $3,348; the Passat 1500 was $3,698 and the TS was $3,895. The top Passat was the 1500 Wagon with auto transmission - $4,198. But look at the Australian sales results for 1974 - 957 1300 Beetles, 2,025 Superbugs - and 3,411 Passats.

People have always been prepared to pay a little more for Volkswagen quality - up to a point. In 1979 you could have bought a Holden Gemini diesel for $5,900, or a fully imported Golf GLD diesel for $10,600. The Golf Diesel had a long waiting list when iut first appeared here in 1978 but was soon priced off the market by the importers LNC Industries.

Today Volkswagens are more comparable to the mainstream models but are still more expensive than Hyundais or Kias - but sales are at record levels. 2011's sales of 44,740 was the highest ever and 17.7% more than 2010. The Up! is sure to add many more sales in future.

TKM tried to import the SEAT range in the '90s as a cheaper Volkswagen, but this failed and SEATS are not longer imported. Skodas are today's 'cheaper VW' - but they sell less than 2,000 a year here.

Would anyone actually buy a cheap Chinese-made VW Sagitar, Santana or Magotan if they were imported here? I doubt it.

According to Wikipedia, VW owns Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, MAN, Porsche, Scania, SEAT, Skoda, Suzuki (20%) plus the inactive brands Auto Union, Dampf-Kraft-Wagen, Horch, NSU and Wanderer.

Perhaps we could help Herren VW in designing a "low cost" car by raiding the parts bins of their subsidiaries; how about revivng the beautiful Horch 85e, but updated with a Bentley W12 driveline and sold at a SEAT price?

hth

Waveman the points you raise are absolutley right. I kept my response to the Australian sphere of things for perspective, and as a way to demonstrate why a 'cheap' VW wouldn't work - at least in our market.

That said, cheaper foreign VW models have been imported into Europe and the US before. The Brazilian Gol sedan was sold in the US as the Fox in the '80s. The Brazilian Fox is sold in Europe (as the VW Fox). And the Chinese-made VW Polo Classic (booted Polo) was sold in Australia in the early 2000s - the first Chinese-made car of any make to be sold here.

Amazing to think that one of VW's Chinese factories makes more cars than the entire Australian auto industry. And VW has twelve factories in China...

Yes VW still owns rights to the NSU and DKW names. Skoda used to be a 'cheap' brand but doesn't seem to be that way any more. Suzuki won't sell any more shares to VW, so there's no prospect there. SEAT is probably the closest but has some image problems to go with the dumb name.

i really think that a basic car would be a great idea in any market.

keep the build quality but cut out the excess crap. the mod cons are nice but not needed.

by cutting out the crap (weight) you would also have a far more fuel efficient car, with better performance too.

Spot on. As mentioned above, VW has already tried the 'build without the excess crap' with no 'mod cons'. The Standard Beetle (1962-68) was a sales flop. Buyers were prepared to pay more for the Deluxe. Or what about when the T3 Microbus was introduced here in 1982 - they started with a basic Microbus ($15,250), a Deluxe Microbus ($16,550) and the Caravelle ($18,250). Which one would most people buy? When the wasserboxer was introduced in 1984 the cheaper Microbuses were dropped, and replaced by two Caravelles - the CL ($17,195) and the GL ($18,295).

Likewise today the current Polo is about the size and output of my Golf 3 (with a lot more mod cons). Yet the bigger and more 'complete' Golf 6 outsells it 6 to 1. And in the Golf range, the most basic model is the 77TSI at $21,990 - but the biggest selling model is the GTI (from $38,990).

Another example - if you had a time machine and could go back to 1976, what Volkswagen would you buy? A basic air-cooled torsion bar Beetle 1600 for $4,140, or the latest Golf LS for $4,490 (4 door?) Guess which one the buyers of 1976 chose?

1976 sales - 1,159 Beetles, and 4,429 Golfs. Had the GTI ever made it here the difference would have been much greater still.

firstly these basic cars are aimed at the devoloping world so you could cut some of the mod cons and it would be ok as they don't have the preconcived nessecities in a new car.

personally i would slaughter the frills, piss off all the power everything, a lot less sound deadening, all the dress up stuff in the engine bay, all of the plastic covers and crap in the interior etc. take it back to the bare basics, aiming for 750kg max.

basically designed to the principles of the beetle. simple, easily maintained, rugged, reliable decent handling. (we forget that in the 40's and 50's the beetles suspension was fairly good compaired to a lot of the cars of the day).

easily replaced panels, standardized bolt sizes (minimal tools needed), simple maintanance, understressed mechanicals. rwd, reasonable ground clearence, good weight over the driven wheels etc for driving on rough / dirt roads.

The up! is designed to the principles of the Beetle, for the modern age. There are now good sealed roads almost everywhere, so rugged dirt-road ability is no longer a necessary requirement. The rest of the design brief for the Beetle and the up! are the same. Seats four, affordable, simple, as economical as possible but still capable of highway speed.

Plastic covers in the engine bay are actually very important for noise reduction. Modern engines with are pretty noisy in the top end and the engine covers act as pretty effective sound shields.

Lee, you will find that most of the sound deadening material is now inside the cabin. As far as I know, most modern cars have heavy butyl/bitumen stuck inside the floor (like dynamat), which is then covered by at least 20-30mm of high-density foam or felt underlay glued to the back of the carpet.

I worked in the Holden plant last year and the amount of noise insulation in the Cruze is astonishing. There has to be at least 200kg worth of foam in each car. The carpet is about 100mm thick with foam rubber, and the headliner has about 50mm of foam on the back of it. The front firewall is covered by a mass-loaded vinyl blanket noise barrier, which probably weighs about 15kg. Even the centre console is completely filled with foam. Then there are the noise treatments in the engine bay, on the firewall and the bonnet.