Vehicles

The Volkswagen Tarok concept asks America if it’s ready for a compact pickup revival

Forty years ago, the first vehicle designed and assembled by Volkswagen entirely in America rolled out of the factory in Pennsylvania. Officially and simply called “Volkswagen Pickup,” the compact truck built from the Rabbit chassis offered an economical alternative to full-size pickups in a time of fluctuating gas prices. Over five years, Volkswagen sold 77,514 Pickup models in the United States and exported several thousand more, before the U.S. market shifted away from small trucks. Th

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Vehicles

The Volkswagen ID.BUGGY concept takes the dune buggy electric

No doors, no roof, no worries. A huge part of the fun behind the Volkswagen-based dune buggies of the 1960s, such as the classic Meyers Manx, was enjoying the outdoors as much as possible. Sure, not every day at the beach was going to be sunny – but when it was, cruising in a Manx was about as fun as it got. What if Volkswagen could bring back that open-air feeling, but this time as an electric car? That was the question that spawned the ID.BUGGY concept unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this

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Vehicles

Volkswagen Atlas Basecamp Concept offers a new way off the beaten path

From Vermont’s Kingdom Trails to Moab, Utah, mountain biking has grown in recent years to become a favorite outdoor sport of millions of Americans. The Volkswagen Atlas Basecamp Concept, on display at the 2019 New York International Auto Show, demonstrates how the Atlas could be transformed into a mountain biker’s dream touring machine. Concept vehicles are not available for sale. Specifications may change. Starting with a 2019 Atlas SEL Premium, powered by the 276-hp VR6 engine paired with 4M

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Vehicles

The new 2019 Volkswagen Jetta GLI marks 35 years of four-door fun

The formula has been simple from the start: Pair a four-door, affordable compact sedan designed for everyday usability with the engine and handling prowess of a hot hatchback. Volkswagen first deployed this formula in 1984 when it created the first Jetta GLI, and the 2019 Jetta GLI unveiled today proves the old recipe still has a kick. Redesigned with American drivers in mind, the new GLI has more power, more technology and more handling prowess than its predecessor, in a package that’s withi

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Community

Tailored bodies, Beetle basics: The quirky world of coachbuilt Volkswagens

A one-of-a-kind car celebration calls for a one-of-kind car – or 12. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first Volkswagen Type 1 sold in the United States, a dozen Beetle-based cars with coachbuilt bodies were presented at the prestigious Amelia Island Concours d’ Elegance. Having a custom body tailor-made for your car was a power move among the wealthy from the start of the auto industry through the 1930s. Following World War II, the European carrozzeria (or karosserie) builders look

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Community

Meet the VW camper van built from 400,000 LEGO® bricks

One brick at a time. It’s how you likely built LEGO® models when you were a kid, or with your own children. And it’s exactly how two of the world’s best builders were able to construct a life-size version of a Volkswagen Type 2 camper van from LEGO® bricks in just six weeks. Unveiled this week at a travel convention in Munich, the Volkswagen van required about 400,000 pieces, with a final weight of 1,543 lbs. It uses real wheels from a Type 2, and like all Volkswagen camper vans has a pop

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Vehicles

Building a sportier sedan: 35 years of the VW Jetta GLI

This year marks the 35th anniversary of Volkswagen’s Jetta GLI – a performance version of VW’s best-selling sedan. Over the past three decades, multiple generations of the Jetta GLI have delivered an affordable, family-friendly package to automotive enthusiasts. Ahead of unveiling the 2019 Jetta GLI at the Chicago Auto Show, let’s take a quick look back at the car’s history. The Jetta GLI first arrived in the United States for the 1984 model year. After the successful launch of the Golf G

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Community

Restoring Annie the Beetle for Her Owner of 50 Years and Counting

Kathleen Brooks remembers buying her first new car. She was 21 years old in December of 1966 when she went to a Volkswagen dealer in Riverside, California, and left with a 1967 VW Beetle in ruby red, complete with white vinyl interior, upgraded exhaust and all of 53 horsepower. Total price: $2,300, with a loan of $28.87 per month. Because of its red coat, Kathleen quickly named her car “Annie.” Soon the miles began to accumulate, as she drove around southern California, from San Francisco to

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Community

Volkswagen kicks off with U.S. Soccer, aiming to become America’s preeminent sport

Around the world, more people watch and play soccer than any other sport. In the United States, soccer has steadily gained fans and players over the past few decades; it’s now the third-largest participatory sport in the nation, and its popularity among people under 35 years old is surpassed only by American football. Today, Volkswagen of America announced it was taking a major step to bolster soccer in America by becoming the presenting sponsor of U.S. Soccer for the next four years – su

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Company

Volkswagen plans to produce EVs in America starting in 2022

The future of personal transportation is electric, and for Volkswagen, building the vehicles of the future means expanding in the United States. Volkswagen announced today it plans to expand its Chattanooga factory to build the next generation of electric vehicles – a investment of about $800 million that anticipates creating about 1,000 jobs in Tennessee and elsewhere in the United States. The Chattanooga plant will become the North American hub for Volkswagen’s all-electric vehicles bui

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Company

How the Volkswagen Apprenticeship Program makes an impact with jobs

Across the country, more than 530,000 people are chasing the dream of a career through an apprenticeship program. These programs combine on-the-job training with classroom work to help enable tech-focused workers to graduate with in-demand skills – and often, a job offer waiting for them. The Volkswagen Apprenticeship Program began at the Chattanooga plant in 2010, training workers who graduate certified to work in any Volkswagen plant worldwide. To mark National Apprenticeship Week, we asked

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Vehicles

Volkswagen I.D. BUZZ CARGO: The electric van that could deliver the future

As electric vehicles evolve, there will be a need for them to adapt to all the shapes and sizes of vehicles we have today. No type of vehicle may be more ready for an all-electric future than delivery vans – and Volkswagen has an idea to deliver that future to your neighborhood in the I.D. BUZZ CARGO concept. While it’s based on the I.D. BUZZ concept, the I.D. BUZZ CARGO has several major updates throughout to transform it into an all-electric workhorse with autonomous driving capability. Lon

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Electric

Meet the Volkswagen platform designed to spawn 10 million electric vehicles

It’s not often that you get to see the future of transportation in such nuts-and-bolts detail. But this isn’t just any future vehicle chassis. In German, it’s called the “Modulare E-Antriebs-Baukasten,” which provides the source of its acronym at Volkswagen: MEB. Translated, its name means “modular electric-drive toolkit,” and it’s designed to be the basic building block of the Volkswagen brand’s electric transportation future. The MEB will form the basis of the future anticipated Volk

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Community

Taking the VW van life road to cosplay adventure

For many people, the thought of quitting a job and traveling the United States sounds like a dream. For Justin and Megan Webb, it’s a reality. Last year, the Tennessee couple decided they had nothing to lose by pursuing a passion. They sold almost everything they had, donated what they could, and kept only a box each of sentimental belongings. They then traveled to Boise, Idaho, where they picked up the vehicle they would live in and drive across the country—a 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon West

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Beetle

With the 2019 Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition, we say #ByeByeBeetle

It’s official: The 2019 Volkswagen Beetle will be the last production year of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle, exactly seven decades after it first came to the United States in 1949. But the Beetle will be getting a year-long sendoff, beginning with special Beetle Final Edition models for 2019 and continuing over the next several months. “The loss of the Beetle after three generations, over nearly seven decades, will evoke a host of emotions from the Beetle’s many devoted fans,” said Hinrich

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Company

Exploring the VW and MoMA partnership for art education

At its best, modern art challenges our way of seeing the world around us. It’s that sense of innovation, of searching for new thoughts and ways of thinking, that has led Volkswagen to partner with The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 (MoMA) since 2011. Together, Volkswagen and MoMA have given life to an array of museum exhibitions, educational opportunities and special event programming over the past seven years. Volkswagen became lead sponsor of MoMA Education in 2015, supporting e

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Vehicles

200 MPH and more: Breaking a speed record with a modified 2019 Volkswagen Jetta

All it takes to modify  a sedan to be able to push past 200 mph is to acknowledge its limits – and then find a way to break them without breaking the car itself. That’s where Tom Habrzyk’s talents come to life. “The power levels required to set records are very high,” explains Habrzyk, chief executive officer of THR Manufacturing, “so to get to those power levels from the drivetrain, we have to basically overcome some of the failure points that would inhibit us from safely reaching high speed

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