Carmakers are a crafty bunch. In decades past, they made bombastic fuel economy claims and even more bizarre advertisements. Sometimes, ads and brochures were best taken with a grain of salt. But one Volkswagen ad is a little funny.
Jason wrote a Cold Start about the famous 84 MPG Volkswagen ad, wherein VW complained about how other automakers came up with their fuel economy claims. Chartreuse Bison:
Volkswagen complaining about other manufacturers achieving test scores by running the car in a different configuration than real life? Hmmm…
Space:
Can’t wait for the Toecutter review of this Beetle.
J Hyman:
Torch, my young friend, let me tell you about the streaking fad of this era. If VW had really been ‘with it’, they might have reached 85+ mpg with ease!
Jay Mcleod:
I hollered up at Ethel, I said, “Don’t look, Ethel!”
Too late, she’d already got a free shot.
Thomas wrote about how Nissan silently killed the Versa without anyone noticing. It’s a shame, too, because the Versa was an affordable sedan with an available manual transmission. It wasn’t a bad car by the end, either. Hangover Grenade:
It’s funny: I want small, cheap manual sedans like this to exist, but I don’t want to be the one to have to buy one. Everyone else should be buying them!
Enthusiasts want cheap cars to exist, but it seems that not enough of anyone, enthusiasts included, buy these cars. Now, the Versa joins the long list of cheap cars that have been sent to live on a farm upstate.
Brian wrote about how the road trip in his cheap Range Rover is going. V10omous made a small error sound hilarious:
After a brief oil level check, my girlfriend and I set out from New York City at 5 a.m. and pointed ourselves east
Please, the trip is hard enough even going the correct direction.
Have a great evening, everyone!
I wish my girlfriend would let me do a brief oil check before setting out.
Those were the days.
Makes me wonder if Brian’s mistake was real and just how far up the Long Island Expressway he got before wondering why he wasn’t seeing a Welcome to New Jersey sign.
On time I spent about 25 minutes on the M25 (the motorway that skirts around London, often mistaken for a car park), before I realised I was going east, when I should have been going west.
“No worries” I thought, I’ll just come off and the next junction and head back the other way. I somehow picked the wrong junction (maybe 27?) which only allowed me to pick either north or south. I picked south, and found no other opportunities to turn around until I hit the North Circular (a road which goes around the northern half of London), so ended up following that back west for an hour or so (about twenty miles), until I could get back to the M25 (and you know it’s a bad day when reaching the M25 is cause for celebration),before finally getting back on route.
I got home about three hours behind all my friends who’d gone the correct way around the M25.
Love the Ray Stevens quote. I grew up with my dad loving any sort of parody music. We had Ray Stevens and Spike Jones records that were almost completely worn out. He didn’t understand my love for Weird Al, until he heard one of Weird Al’s Polkas.
Here he comes – boogety boogety
There he goes – boogety boogety
Sounds like a Nascar Race.
I was happy that Space asked for Toecutter’s take, but very happy when Toecutter answered.
I’d have said more and sooner, but I had to work and didn’t see that comment or read the article until that night.
I was happy too, I hadn’t even considered what speed VW may have tested this beetle at.