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Topic: Student Questions

Vw Phaeton. Is It A Disaster?

Posted by Anonymous on 3/20/2005 at 12:52 PM ET 250 Points
step-up brand extension appear on the whole a more risky action in the automobile industry. Do you side with VW's approach or you laud Toyota's approach with Lexus? interesting.
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  • Posted by SRyan ;] on 3/21/2005 at 3:25 AM Member
    Please keep your questions in the STUDENT category!
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 5/11/2005 at 12:04 AM Accepted
    What were their choices?

    1. Develop a new brand from scratch

    2. Badge the Phaeton under one of the group's more illustrious marques, e.g. Audi or Porsche...

    3. Badge it as a VW and make a statement about what VW stands for now, that it's clearly no longer "the people's car" that a certain malevolent dictator once dubbed it.

    I am sure they considered option 2 long and hard before deciding the Porsche brand was already sullied enough with the addition of the Cayenne to the range... And the Audi range had no room for another luxo-barge when they already offered the A8.

    Starting a new brand from scratch, even for a company with budgets the size of VW, Toyota, Honda or Nissan is not for the fainthearted. Sure, the Lexus initiative worked for Toyota. Acura has worked for Honda. Infiniti was a disaster in most territories for Nissan.

    How would it go for VW? Why take the risk?

    I bet the decision meant a lot of sleepless nights for VW management.

    Time will be their judge.

    ChrisB
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