I'd rather wear a Beetle out by racing it than by polishing it!
Phil74Camper
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posted on October 15th, 2012 at 07:12 AM
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.
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posted on October 15th, 2012 at 10:43 AM
Quote:
Originally
posted by Phil74Camper
Would anyone actually buy a cheap Chinese-made VW Sagitar, Santana or Magotan if they were imported here? I doubt it.
The world is a lot bigger than Australia. I doubt that VW even considers the Australian market when developing new models. They design their cars for
the global marketplace, and we import whatever is suitable.
VW would never tarnish their brand image by selling their cut-price car in "first world" western countries. However, there is an enormous demand for
cheap, basic cars in China, India and across Eastern Europe. These countries are desperate for affordable, reliable transport and VW wants to
capitalise on the sales volume. They have already been very successful at breaking into the Chinese market, as they were one of the first foreign car
manufacturers to set up operations there.
VW sold 2.26 million cars in China last year and they're predicting a 9% sales growth next year! China already buys 29% of VW's global sales, and
the number is increasing. By contrast, VW Australia only sold 48,000 cars last year. That's not even a blip on the radar of VW.
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posted on October 15th, 2012 at 11:27 AM
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
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posted on October 15th, 2012 at 01:02 PM
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.
whatnow
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posted on October 15th, 2012 at 08:38 PM
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.
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posted on October 16th, 2012 at 10:35 AM
Quote:
Originally
posted by whatnow
keep the build quality but cut out the excess crap. the mod cons are nice but not needed.
I agree that would be great, but unfortunately it will never happen. At least, not below the level of the current base models. The problem is that the
mod-cons and other 'luxury' accessories are very cheap to add, but they increase the customer's perceived value of the car enormously. On the other
hand, good perceived build quality is expensive to manufacture, but buyers will not value it as highly on a test drive.
For example, if VW was going to make a stripped-out model of the Golf, with no power seats, windows or mirrors, it would only save about 50kg on the
vehicle's weight and probably $500 or less off the retail price. Nobody would buy it. Not to mention the fact that they no longer design or
manufacture manual mechanisms for stuff like that anymore, so it would actually cost them more money to develop it.
The only feature of modern cars which I think is unnecessary is the excessive amounts of sound deadening, but that adds to the perceived build quality
of the car, so I'm assuming that you don't count that as a mod-con.
There aren't really many features on a car that the market would accept losing. Air conditioning is absolutely essential now, as are power windows
and a radio. A lot of people won't even buy a car if it doesn't play MP3 and connect to their phone with Bluetooth. I do think that we could
probably do away with the CD player to save some weight though. CDs are on their way out now, as long as you provided Bluetooth audio streaming (much
lighter and cheaper to build) then not many young buyers would miss the CD drive.
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posted on October 16th, 2012 at 01:14 PM
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.
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posted on October 16th, 2012 at 08:47 PM
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.
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posted on October 16th, 2012 at 09:19 PM
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.
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posted on October 16th, 2012 at 11:07 PM
Quote:
Originally
posted by Phil74Camper
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 don't suppose any chinese made polos etc will ever get here
they don't have to keep testing the cars over there.. they just make them and they do look good in films and docos etc..
and all those VW passat or santana TAXIS...
Not many things that can be taken out of a modern car and still be legal on the road...
You can take out auto wipers and headlamps..
and the little motors that wind the outside mirrors in...
thats about all... not much noise reduction is fitted to cars to day as they are made to a price...
I bought 1997 Mitsubishi Lancer GLXi 1.8 twin cam and it had a black substance under the guards etc for noise reduction... Bought another new one in
2001 and all the noise reduction under the car wasn't there...
even the bonnet noise reduction cover wasn't there.
I do believe We are getting too much for the money at the moment, due to all the new technolegy being standard on cars all with BSB brakes and the
other two additions that are common. Many things are now included as the old mechanical method has gone and was too heavy and too expensive to add
now..
electric windows are now standard,, as the mechanical ones are getting scarce, more expensive than a motor wire and a switch..
PLUS all those AIR BAGS... 6-7 or 8 are common...
seat belt tighteners which make the seat belt worthless once its been used...
My thoughts
LEE
But do We all need to be able to talk to Your car and tell it which song You want played... NOW... Lee
- [size=4]Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY--- [/size]
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posted on October 17th, 2012 at 11:40 AM
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.
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posted on October 20th, 2012 at 06:52 PM
Quote:
Originally
posted by whatnow
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.
Sounds like a HQ belmont.
Owned one for 18 years.
Best car I ever owned.
