Powder Hound said:
In years past, the German maker might have simply used that as an excuse to ignore the needs of the American market."
-Uuh, what do you mean, "might have" ? I think if you quickly check the variety of models and options available in the home market vs. what is available here in N.A., VW has very much ignored consumer preferences here. And furthermore, it is not something that slipped between the cracks. This is euro-snobbery in all its ugliness.
Don't be so sure...
First off, It's hard to make an argument that VW's North American lineup is bad as a result of neglect...I think it's quite the opposite. Well, except the part about the bad lineup...I'll grant you that that's definitely true. But if anything it's bad because they're trying
too hard to please the average buyer in a market that still thinks leaf springs and pushrod engines belong on the road rather than in a museum. Hence the dumbed-down product line, the bizarre insistence upon a 2.5L straight-5 as the workhorse gasser engine (no replacement for displacement, no matter how impractical, right?), the badge-engineering of a Chrysler van, and their fear of bringing over anything too small (Polo) or too many diesels.
So yes, they're ignoring the preferences of a buyer likely to be reading this forum, but I just don't see where the "Euro-snob" stuff fits into this argument...they're not ignoring American tastes in any general sense. In fact, they're obsessed with pandering to them. They've chosen to aim to please a much larger segment of the American car-buying public: People who want a minimum of 35 cupholders in a 4-seater, and who really like playing those old racing arcade games where you can spin the wheel freely with no feedback and wish that experience could translate to a real car. In other words, not enthusiast drivers but rather people who think of a car like they think of a washing machine or a fridge.
The lineup is uninspiring and limited compared to the home-market lineup because they're looking at the cars that do well in this market, and trying to adapt to that. If they wanted to ignore those observations and bring over all the cool stuff we don't currently get, I'd be thrilled, and so would many other people with a certain set of preferences, but we're a minority. I'd love to see it happen, but that would require them to pay
less attention to the overall preferences of the market, not more.
In short, while I share your frustration, you ought to be careful what you wish for, particularly as VW stands poised to grab a bigger slice of the American market by trying to out-Toyota Toyota with the least exciting cars yet. You can't, for instance, ask VW to cater to the North American market while making the cars smaller and lighter. It just doesn't work that way...in this market, bigger is always better, and the more toys you can cram in (and thus the heavier the car gets) the more appealing it becomes.
