JSW to GSW: 2015 SportWagen will be a Golf

diezel · Feb 3, 2014

From Automotive News:
"The Jetta SportWagen, based on the Golf hatchback, will be renamed the Golf SportWagen for the 2015 model year, when the 7th-generation Golf and redesigned SportWagen go on sale."
http://www.autonews.com/article/20140203/RETAIL/302039926/vw-calms-dealers-charts-next-big-step

TDIgolfwagen · Feb 3, 2014

I'd like to be the first to welcome the USA to the rest of the world for golf naming!

MontrealTDI · Feb 3, 2014

Welcome to the club

nikhsub1 · Feb 3, 2014

LOL. This is news? Only ignorant Americans think the JSW is actually based on a Jetta...

dpg · Feb 3, 2014

I'll only care about the name changing if we get some of the options that the international name gets. Doubt it though

BarryT82 · Feb 3, 2014

They need to at least have bi-xenons on it.

Jayg · Feb 3, 2014

nikhsub1 said:
LOL. This is news? Only ignorant Americans think the JSW is actually based on a Jetta...

Honestly, I think most Americans don't care. It's ignorant of VW to name it that way when previous models were named on a pattern that made sense.

Sunny · Feb 3, 2014

Good thing. The jetta name sounds too feminine.

frugality · Feb 3, 2014

And Golf just reminds me of a sissy sport....

msantram · Feb 3, 2014

what i don't ever understand, especially after visiting a dealer's parts dept over the weekend trying to find parts with their over-complicated archaic numbering system, is why the F don't they standardize more names, components, and reduce variation?

i can't ever see the logic in having so many branding and numbering differences. i know accountants will argue the cumulative effect of saving a penny or two on a grand scale, but surely as ridiculous as calling the sportwagen a jetta instead of a golf, perhaps VW ought to be applying this reasoning to streamlining their inventory & putting the savings into a better product. especially if they want to hit 800k sales in 2018.

okay, rant over.

frugality · Feb 3, 2014

While I don't care for 'marketing', the decision is good marketing.

The name 'Jetta' has more respect here in the U.S. It's always been seen as a more stylish car here. In Germany, apparently the Jetta is an old man's car, like a Buick Century here.

In the U.S., the Golf is seen as a car driven by poor liberal eco-dweebs who wear burlap pullovers and birkenstocks. Popular in liberal metropolises, and in college towns.

I loved my Golf, even though I am the exact opposite of that description.

I don't think the name change is a wise marketing move, but given that the current Jetta was separated into its own North-America-only platform, associating the name with the correct platform makes more sense in that sense.

msantram · Feb 3, 2014

I understand your point, and used to feel that way. Apple faced a lot flack when they ditched the PowerBook moniker for MacBook etc etc. It's all about getting a brand in a consumer's mind. Though I think the Passat is more of an old man's car, wherever you live. ;-)

Perhaps the better move would be to just call it a SportWagen. Seems it's more fitting anyway.

kb9uwu · Feb 4, 2014

Deleting the rear "Jetta" badge and adding window tint are my only "mods"

JASONP · Feb 4, 2014

VW changed the name of the Golf back to the rabbit, look how long that lasted?
How feminine was that?

Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

MichaelB · Feb 4, 2014

msantram said:
Perhaps the better move would be to just call it a SportWagen. Seems it's more fitting anyway.

I agree it gives the car it's own identity.

Diesl · Feb 4, 2014

Funny you should mention the Rabbit. I heard runner-up in their focus group study was 'RabidWagon'.

Ctyankee · Feb 5, 2014

frugality said:
In the U.S., the Golf is seen as a car driven by poor liberal eco-dweebs who wear burlap pullovers and birkenstocks. Popular in liberal metropolises, and in college towns.

I wear denim and doc martens...thank you very much.

I'm with you. Amazing how different the point of view is when it comes to the Golf. But that's fine by me.

Ctyankee · Feb 5, 2014

If they stuck with the "Rabbit" name, they would've needed to toughen it up a little. Perhaps instead of a Wolfsburg edition they could go with "Watership down edition".

frugality · Feb 5, 2014

VW should have partnered with Warner Brothers, the way Ford partners with H-D or Eddy Bauer. They could have made a Bugs-edition "Wabbit."

'Sarcasm wanted.'

Sunny · Feb 7, 2014

I just had tacos tonight.

It reminded me of the jetta sport wagon.

ARGH · Feb 7, 2014

this cannot be true. the name Golf is a goofy name for a car. they will lose sales by taking out the Jetta nameplate from the car.

vw has silly names for their products. golf, cc, tiguan, tourege, routan. these are names sound horrible. i bet this business strategy of goofy names is a good reason why they are not performing well in america.

frugality · Feb 8, 2014

I dunno, I think it's better than MKZ, RDX, WRX STI, (even GTI) and all the other alphabet-soup cars out there.

Tiguan, Touraeg, Routan, etc., are all African tribal names.

Golf, Jetta, Passat, Scirocco, etc., area all names of winds.

I give 'em props for being creative.

msantram · Feb 8, 2014

I agree. I liked honda's previous names for the integra, vigor, and legend. Car names can be silly or lost in translation. Don't think I need to bring up Yugo, or Nova (which roughly means "no go" in Spanish)... I am sure we all know these things.

MB is one company who I think can carry an alphanumeric name well. But that is based on past history.

Anyway I always thought scirocco was something super fast. But then again I like the names of IKEA products and especially love the illustrated caricatures of humans assembling the Billy bookshelf, the grundtal, and the nordskorp!

http://flavorwire.com/225706/the-most-ridiculous-ikea-product-names-and-what-they-mean/

frugality · Feb 8, 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirocco

I didn't watch the Super Bowl, but someone who did forwarded me a link to the Maserati Ghibli ad.

Ghibli apparently is the Libyan name for the 'Scirocco' wind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghibli

I read someone jabbin' Maserati for that name, saying it means "hot air".....

msantram · Feb 8, 2014

that ad was interesting. It started off like a giant call to arms and wake up call to americans but then converted into an ad for a car that most americans cannot afford. think you might be right about "hot air"

though I was hoping the ad would have been like that Ford two three years ago ad after the big three collapse/resuscitation.

Diesl · Feb 8, 2014

ARGH said:
this cannot be true. the name Golf is a goofy name for a car. they will lose sales by taking out the Jetta nameplate from the car.

Really? Jetta seems a lot goofier than Golf to me. Didn't stop me from buying one, of course.

Quite a few of these older VW names are borrowed from winds. Golf doesn't fit; supposedly it's named after the gulf stream.

geoman · Feb 9, 2014

appearantly using only sportwagen infringes on copywrite(jaguar's?). what about 'sportvagen' or sportvwagen with the round vw logo somehow superimposed where the 'w' would be in the word, letters angled and stylized for speed-effect(lol!)?
golf sw tdi 2.0(now there's a dis-jointed mouthful!)? wagon isn't a dirty word in canada like i think it is in the us. marketting is a strange exercise isn't it?

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