Crossover Appeal

In 2012, Volkswagen quietly discontinued its Routan minivan.  It was the only time Volkswagen enthusiasts in America were glad to see a VW discontinued . . . assuming they noticed.  It was a vehicle not too many people were aware VW was still making before it was dropped, and so, not too many people were aware that it had been discontinued.

So what was so bad about the Volkswagen Routan? There was nothing wrong with it, but it was a dull, tedious, uninspiring minivan that was developed with - yeah, big surprise - Chrysler.  Chrysler minivans personify the very idea of dullness, and so many suburban dads in the late eighties were embarrassed to drive them (and their underpaid wives, being forced to sit with them through action movies on home video every Saturday night and watching women's reproductive rights being chipped away at, felt so f---in' sorry for them!)  that they went out and bought SUVs.  So, later, did their wives.  Volkswagen at least still had the Vanagon and the EuroVan in the eighties and nineties, but they didn't sell in significant quantities.  Volkswagen, deciding that its funky Transporters weren't clicking with American customers, decided to develop a minivan with Chrysler, which was like a gourmet chef working for a McDonald's restaurant.

So, now that the Routan is gone, is VW now going to bring the Transporter back to the States? Or at least give us the Mazda 5-sized Touran?  Sadly, the answer to both of those questions is no.  Instead, Volkswagen has chosen to bless us with this:

This is the VW Cross Blue concept vehicle, which is almost certain to go into production, likely at the firm's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant.  It's a three-seat-row "crossover" that's really more like a Ford Explorer or a Honda Pilot, powered by a unique diesel/electric hybrid system.

And I don't like it one bit.   

By copying the competition with a vehicle we already have too many examples of on the American highway today, Volkswagen has suggested that it's going back to the same type of "Americanization" that Carl Hahn so famously waged war against as VW chairman in the 1980s.  A fun, European-style minivan always made for a unique selling point for VW passenger vans in the States, which was what made the Microbuses and Buses of the sixties and seventies such big cultural icons. VW needs a real minivan, direct from Germany, like its current Transporter, for the three-row-seating vehicle market segment.

Or, at least the Touran, shown below.

But then, maybe I'm wrong. Because despite the warm nostalgia for the Transporters of the sixties and seventies,  VW never sold any more than 65,000 of them in America in any given year, despite having the small passenger van market to itself for so long.  Most Americans simply found them too funky, too non-conformist, too unconventional. Chrysler's conventional, conservative, mainstream minivans proved to be much more palatable product for These States, and VW became an also-ran in the minivan sweepstakes as other car companies tried to copy Chrysler's products. Showing up at the supermarket in a VW Vanagon in the eighties and parking in a lot full of Dodge Caravans and Plymouth Voyagers was like showing up at a Duran Duran concert wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt.  Now, with minivans less popular than they used to be, driving a Routan or even a Grand Caravan on an avenue full of SUVs is like still being a Duran Duran fan when everyone else is listening to Justin Timberlake or Bruno Mars.  Maybe that's why VW's two most recent attempts at retro vans - the Microbus concept, the Bulli - never made it into production.

Just remember, fellow American VW fans, we still have the Golf and the GTI, we may yet get the Polo, and the current Jetta has been tweaked a bit (but not so much).  And of course, there's the modern Beetle.  So there's still some German character in VW's current North American lineup.  And remember, if the Jetta makes a lot of money, that allows Volkswagen of America to sell its more European-style cars here as loss leaders. We'll have to take this creeping Americanization in VW's North American lineup with a either a grain of salt or a spoonful of sugar.

But we don't have to take it in silence.