Volkswagen Routan: Ridiculous Rebadge

Volkswagen Routan: Ridiculous Rebadge

Volkswagen is desperately trying to go mainstream.  I know that because their US market CEO is constantly announcing new volume targets, which primarily involves adding zeroes to earlier ones.

In its quest for more sales, Volkswagen decided to enter the minivan segment, which leads to our latest Ridiculous Rebadge: the Volkswagen Routan, which is little more than a rebadged Chrysler minivan.  Very little more.

You see, while the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna vie for hard-earned cash from American consumers, the Chrysler Town & Country is primarily sold by the dozen to Hertz fleet buyers at 6pm on the last day of the month.  Watching this from afar, did Volkswagen decide to develop its own van to take on Toyota?  Or approach Honda to share parts?  No.  Volkswagen instead decided to team up with Chrysler, presumably to get in on the rental car action.

The results were predictable to everyone except Volkswagen, who advertised the Routan’s “German engineering” in TV ads despite the van’s Chrysler underpinnings and Canadian manufacture.  In reality, the only Volkswagen bits were the grille and some interior trim.  All the rest was Chrysler, which is to say the cheapest stuff they could find.

Customers stayed away in droves, sales dwindled, and VW was left with thousands of unsold vans because their Chrysler contract specified certain minimum production numbers.  The result was a slogan change, from the charming “Drivers Wanted” to a more appropriate “Drivers Needed.”

OK, that didn’t happen.  But it should’ve.

2 Responses to “ “Volkswagen Routan: Ridiculous Rebadge”

  1. IM says:

    The VW Routan IS a marvel of German engineering. I am sure at some point in the 2000s some Daimler engineers must have glanced at the designs. Never since driving a 1979 Dodge Colt Station Wagon in the late 80s -now here is a rebadge history lesson- have I received so many complimenting stares like I do when driving my Routan. The name itself is genius. Tour + Sharan = Touran, switch the letters and voila. That is brilliant in itself.

  2. Ken Westmoreland says:

    As I don’t live in North America, I would never have known it was a rebadged Chrysler. I’ve seen stranger-looking and less convincing rebadges, like the VW 1500 in Argentina (based on the British Hillman Avenger, once sold in the US as the Plymouth Cricket) or the VW Apollo in Brazil, which was based on the European Ford Escort.

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