"And, according to Reguly, who cites German press reports, Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and VW chief Ferdinand Piech don't get along to well."

Huh? Sweet Peet has maintained that Wiedeking is Piech's lapdog-in-chief. Who's right?

It's interesting to see how the Piech Family, Porsche descendants, are now on the VW side, Porsche's original supplier.

And the wheel goes round and round.....

Maybe it will be good and will force VW to build VWs
again. Instead of trying to be upscale everything.

A fun to drive Rabbit under 2000 lbs and with rollup windows and roll back sunroof, and manual door locks would be nice to see again. And you could stay out of the service depatments alot more.

You know, kind of like a old VW ?

That VW could create the girliest car ever created (I think I read somewhere that 90-some % of the buyers of the Golf Cabriolet were women) while Porsche created the manliest (same stat, but for men, with the 911) perhaps makes it seem logical they should crawl further in bed together. Although it's a retelling of history to suggest it, I guess that makes Audi the ambiguously-gendered offspring.

What really needs to change at Volkswagen is the "By Pricks, For Pricks" philosophy.

I would take no notice of what Eric Reguly writes. His favorite readers is himself.

I, for one, am impressed that the Jalopnik editors are so much better than I thought at reading Canadian. All those extra U's, the Queen's English, a funny accent, and the letter Z, pronounced zed. Well done, gentlemen.

I am also nervous, because that means they really can understand what I've been writing all this time, and have just chosen to ignore me. Perhaps I should've been more discreet with all the insults I've thrown out at Matthew DeBord.

Nah.

@hoontastic: well said...I just wanted the damn VR6...not electric windows, leather heated seats or 3 way moon/sun roof...but I got it all and have had to have both window motors replaced twice...

but i love me the VR6

my wife loves the heated seats though...the engine not so much...

oh...the sunroof is dead...well for the most part, it cracks open in the back and closes, thats pretty much all it does now..$2k to fix

@vr6john: Come talk to me when you've experienced the phenomenal headaches of a hopped-up G60. All the fun of tweaky German electrics, with the added bonus of a fragile supercharger that needs to be replaced every 60,000 kms.

@milo_carrera: Why did they stop making the Snatch Basket? I guess the New Beetle vert was the replacement.

when VW USA realizes Americans actually like some choices, maybe they'll start selling cars to the kinds of buyers who used to buy VW because they were, you know, good, fun-to-drive cars and not expensive, heavy, crumbly underpowered clunkers like the Rabbit and base Jetta. c'mon, that 2.5 five-pot engine makes 150hp and gets shitty mileage. why did you stick us Yanks with that lump of iron when there's so many better engines in your stable o' goodies? sorry but you guys have nothing a lot of us want to buy anymore.

Thats the problem with VW, and forgive me for being oversimplistic. Germans dont exactly make the most reliable cars nowadays. But MB, BMW, Audi and the lot are all up-market type cars, so the people who buy them can afford to pay for expencive repairs. VW is indeed a lower-market automaker, and its consumers wont tolerate sky-high repair costs and with all these euro-dollar shanaigians, the cost of repairs and imported cars in general is gonna get higher. This is why VW needs more US baised manufacturing facilites, none of this "Make it in South America" mumbo-jumbo. That results in low quality products.

actually the fox is rather good,
cheap too.

To survive VW has to do something, but knocking Toyota off is a joke. It's a German company after all and we all know that means a "know-it -all" attitude and 'ADOLPH" Piech has delisions of grandeur like another well known German named Adolph.

No one can tell him what to do. So VW will continue to flounder.

Reguly has been writing for the Globe's business section for years. He also usually writes a couple of articles a year for their auto section, as does his wife Karen Zagor. I wouldn't say that this is one of his better articles, but he does keep an eye on the auto business (amongst many others).

Dr. Piech used to be CEO of VW AG, later chairman of its board. He recently resigned from that post and now wants to become Chairman of Audi AG - his old haunt. Currently, Audi AG is still 100% owned by VW AG but there are persistent rumors that the Porsche Automobil Holding SE wants to restructure VW AG into several smaller parts that all report directly to it, just as Porsche AG does.

However, such a radical move would be subject to a possible veto by the state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20.1% stake in VW AG. German law normally requires 25.1% for a blocking minority, but the EU court did not explicitly strike down this particular anomaly in the infamous Lex VW. The German justice minister is preparing an update to comply with the recent ruling, but the EU competition commissioner has already indicated she would file a second lawsuit if the revised law failed to raise the blocking majority at VW AG to the general standard. She would probably win but it could be years before a second verdict is handed down.

The background for all these legal skirmishes is that Dr. Wiedeking and the Porsche/Piech clan both want to clip the wings of the powerful but bolshy union leader Bernd Osterloh. His counterparts in Southern Germany are much more moderate.

Audi, Skoda, Bentley and Lamborghini are all highly profitable. Wiedeking thinks the core VW brand could do better. SEAT is losing money and so is Bugatti, though they are on track to at least break even before long. To clean house, the holding company wants to expose the rot. Osterloh and politicians alike fear that could ultimately lead to significant job losses in Northern Germany and Spain.

Might help if VW followed Porsche's lead, and made a solid lineup of cars that people actually want.

Despite hating the Cayenne for being a fly in Porsche's ointment (albeit veeeeeeery profitable), I have to admit they sell a lot of them, along with a lineup of other completely desirable cars.

Agreed with Hoontastic - simple cars that either stay out of the service bays, or can be repaired by the people.

VW's big in China. Why don't they start importing the Passats and Polos they make there? We could eventually see a full range of German cars made in China for Americans displacing Japanese cars made in America for Americans, and the circle of life would be complete.

@rgseidl:

Thanks for the deep dive. My understanding is that the "Wiedeking and the Porsche/Piech" clan do want to bust the "bolshy" union--and how many of those are really left these days? makes me want to interview Bernd--but that it's a higher priority for Piech.

@timrussell: Keep in mind that the Golf-based Cabriolet lived on for a time after the Golf itself went away. So hey, they gave it a good run. But you are right about the new Beetle convertible. I haven't seen stats, but I'd bet it's well deserving of the new "Snatch Basket" title.

@milo_carrera: Hence the "BI turbo" A6 my ambiguously bicurious wife "forced" me to buy.

VW's base 2.5 5-cylinder engine is a disgrace.

All the power of a four with the fuel economy of a six!

@ Matthew DeBord -

for many years, VW was known colloquially as "VEB Wolfsburg". VEB is the abbreviation for "volkseigener Betrieb" (corporation owned by the people) used in former communist East Germany.

Since 1970, West Germany's constitution (!) requires employers to give worker representatives equal representation on the board of directors once there are more than 10 employees. In large corporations, worker representatives don't do any actual work yet have to be paid by the company. They wield a lot of power in all major decisions, including strategic investments world-wide, restructuring, product roadmaps, even personnel appointments.

Combine that with the 20.1% stake held by the state of Lower Saxony - until recently, a social democratic stronghold - plus the special provisions of the Lex VW, set up to salvage the company after the war and, you can see why many outsiders perceived VW as an anomaly.

One consequence of VW's special status was that senior worker representatives could command very high salaries and perks such as prostitutes on junkets to VW do Brasil, though some were "encouraged" to accept such bribes to keep them compliant. A number of embarassing court cases have recently brought these practices to light, with former CEO Piech relying on plausible deniability to keep himself out of hot water.

Even now, Bernd Osterloh says that he's "willing to let Porsche into the family", but only on his terms. This illustrates how far from normal capitalist reality the Hannover branch of the IGM union is still removed.

wait doesn't VW cut enough corners as it is? i constantly hear horror stories about the poor VW build quality and Porsche wants to cut more corners? i had hoped they would refine the Volkswagens not cheapen them.

@Turboner: What? Bi-curious wife? Now you're just braggin'...

@gotsmart: Here, here. With the porcine weight of all new VWs these days, they ought to throw the 2.0 TFSI in everything they make. But I guess they're worried about "cheapening" the Audis and GTIs.

Hear, hear. Wow, I need more coffee.