V-Dub heads down market

Newswheel staff :: 14 March 2006 :: Filed under Hatchback, Volkswagen, Europe & UK, US

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An £8,000 Golf? Yup, but not in Blighty…

Affordable German engineering. Nice idea and certainly something VW used to aspire to. Thanks in no small part to the ambitions of one Ferdinand Piech, however, VW’s offerings have been gradually creeping upmarket, culminating in the limo-sized flop that is the Phaeton luxury saloon. But apparently there’s been some coffee sniffing going on at VW headquarters – VW brand head honcho Adrian Hallmark has been talking up cheaper V-Dubs…

Speaking to US trade pub Automotive News, Hallmark says he reckons there’s a gap in the market, Stateside, that could be filled by a cheaper Golf. The general idea is to “de-content the Golf, change the configuration a bit and make it affordable."

The last gen Golf starts at around $16,000 (c. £9,000) in the US. Hallmark wants the new Golf, due to go on sale this June in America, to do no worse than hit that price point - and preferably to beat it. “Golf used to be the affordable entry point for the VW brand,” quoth Hallmark, "but it is just out of reach of that sweet point of the market - $15,000."

The $64,000, Toureg-sized question, therefore, is whether this presages a more general move down market for VW.  The official answer is that VW currently doesn’t believe the whole brand needs to be repositioned as an entry level proposition, but that the firm needs “a foot in that campus.”

Do not, however, get too excited by the prospect of bargain basement Golfs in Blighty. Golf pricing in the UK currently kicks off at just under £12,000. So, in the usual rip-off Britain context, an £8-9,000 Golf Stateside would hardly be out of the norm.

Linkage:
Automotive News