Thinking Small Again?

I need a break from the current news cycle. I'd like to talk instead about one of my favorite topics - Volkswagen.

Kjell Gruner, president and CEO of Volkswagen of America (which marked its seventy-first anniversary yesterday),  assured die-hard Volkswagen enthusiasts that, despite the fact that five out of six Volkswagen vehicles sold in the U.S. are sport utility vehicles, the Golf and the Jetta will remain in VW's American lineup.  Gruner called them the two compacts the soul of the brand.

That  is all good and fine - at least it sounds all good and fine - but, last time I checked, the base version of Volkswagen's eighth-generation Golf (above) is still unavailable, as the current Golf - available here and in Canada in GTI and R form only - concludes its fifth model year in the New World, while the current Jetta (below), the seventh-generation model, has been on the market for eight years with the occasional facelift and upgrading.

I guess that's better than nothing, as the 2020s have mostly been a nothing decade for Volkswagen enthusiasts in the U.S. and Canada.  The decade began with the lack of a modern Beetle (and no convertible), the decision to drop the base Golf from the New World, and a pandemic that made Volkswagens difficult to produce thanks to supply-chain disruptions.  It continued with the termination of the Passat and the debut of the incredibly boring Taos compact SUV.  And while Europeans continue to get new and exciting electric vehicles, we have only gotten the ID.4 SUV and the ID. Buzz minivan - the latter taking a break for 2026 because VW dealers still have plenty of 2025 models in stock because it's too damn expensive.  The Passat-sized ID.7 electric sedan was canceled when it became apparent that U.S. government support for EVs was fleeting, and it will likely remain unavailable even if a Democrat is elected President in 2028.  The Golf GTI and Golf R remain too expensive for many VW customers, leaving the Jetta as our only recourse.  

And the biggest news for 2026 is a second-generation Atlas full-size SUV. That's what Volkswagen highlighted at the New York Auto Show in 2026. And that was another reason for me not to bother with the show this year, frankly.  

For the time being, the Jetta will return Volkswagen to its roots.  The car will be improved under the hood and under the floor with updated engines, fuel injectors, shocks and suspension as well as inside the car with better ambient lighting and controls, while the styling, already more conservative than a Heritage Foundation policy paper, will remain unchanged.  In other words, it will be how the Beetle evolved in the U.S. for thirty years.  Volkswagen of America ought to reprise its ad for the 1962 Volkswagen showing a blank page and explaining the car's non-visual improvements to sell next year's Jetta.

And it might not be our only realistic choice for long.  With production costs rising in Germany, and with an all-electric ninth-generation Golf (which, like the ID.3, will likely be forbidden fruit in These States) still a couple of years away, Volkswagen is actually planning to produce the current Golf in Mexico for the European market.  That's like Ford producing the Mustang for in Japan for Americans.   But Volkswagen deems it necessary to reduce production costs and make the Wolfsburg factory more devoted to EVs. 

Now bear with me here.  Part of the reason the base Golf was dropped from the North American market with the debut of the eighth generation (that does not only include Canada, it includes Mexico, and Mexico doesn't get any eighth-generation Golfs, not even the high-performance variants) was because VW had decided to produce the Mark 8 Golf exclusively in Wolfsburg and not in the Mexican factory at Puebla.  Puebla had been sourcing the Mark 7 Golf to North America because it was cheaper than exporting them to North America from Wolfsburg, as had been the case with the fifth- and sixth-generation cars.  But with the shift of Golf production back to Germany, restricting the Golf to only its high-performance variants in North America was the only thing that made sense to VW from an economic standpoint, considering the base Golf's lack of popularity in North America beyond VW's die-hard customer base.  So if the eighth-generation Golf is going to be made in Mexico for Europeans, and the Golf GTI and Golf R will be made for North America in Puebla as well . . . why not bring the base Golf back to North America, when it will inevitably be cheaper to make?  VW is playing the same game with SUVs that every other automaker doing business on this continent is playing - that is, make 'em bigger and more expensive.  But if Kjell Gruner really does want VW to remain true to its roots, maybe, just maybe, the base Golf can return to North American dealerships.

Volkswagen ought to consider taking advantage of this opportunity to bring the base Golf back to North America while continuing with the Jetta.  Both cars are economical and easy on gas, and at a time when affordability and a possible oil crisis are the top issues of the day, having affordable small cars available is good for Volkswagen, just as it can only be good for Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.   Admittedly, we wouldn't get the array of engine choices for the base Golf that Europeans get and have gotten for decades, but maybe VW might want to consider returning to the hybrid market in light of  U.S. transportation policy backtracking on EVs.  I drove the base Mark 8 Golf with an eTSI hybrid setup in Germany, and it performed as well as my Mark 6 Golf.  I loved it.  Former Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh famously said that Volkswagen stood for affordability, and fuel-efficient, inexpensive compact cars are always the way for Volkswagen to go.

Come on, Volkswagen of America, think small again.

(Oh yeah, I'm still keeping my Mark 6 Golf for the foreseeable future.)