Article and video about shipments starting; some points of commentary

[verylongdrive]

I'm starting a new thread because I can't find the one that had a link to this article about the start of major shipments:
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/aug/31/vw-shipping-passats-to-dealers-as-market-launch/?print
which also contained a link to an interesting video:
http://timesfreepress.com/videos/2011/aug/31/5754/

Some notes:
Manufacturing 1000 cars a week according to the article, shipping 350-400 a day right now.

0:36 "cornerstone"

0:48-0:55 is he saying there's a phase of on-the-lot-for-sale cars before pre-ordered cars going "from here on out", or is it just a poor choice of words, and all he's saying is that this is the first phase (delimited from the second by what?) of production-for-sale, after the initial demo-only shipping of test-production cars?

Right after that, it's rare to hear a German accent so strong I can't fully figure what he's trying to say: "series" production (i.e. literal mistranslation of German for regular mass production), or "serious"?

Trunk lid misaligned at on left at 1:26?
Badges back on top of the trunk, dangit.

Looks like the same crap large-flake paint quality I saw at the dealer at 1:28

 

[rhpot1991]

I'm pretty annoyed at my dealer right now, I asked if they have any updated delivery information and they fed me some line about orders taking up to 90 days. When I asked when my pre-order became a regular order they told me that there were no Midnight Blue SEL TDI Models available at launch.
Thanks for waiting until 2 weeks before launch and only telling me after I asked...
Anyone else have this issue, or can anyone contradict that the color choices are an issue?

 

[Delegator]

My dealer told me last week that my Opera Red TDI SEL was "accepted for production" but that they do not yet have a delivery date.

I suspect they are building a bunch of black, white, and silver ones first because those will comprise 70+% of demand. But at least the special orders are in the production queue.