![]() The whole thing looks like it was generated in the background of a Playstation One first-person shooter if you catch my drift.Ĭredit Volkswagen for taking the hint and craft what is, essentially, the same vehicle into a slightly more modern-looking package. The pre-facelift Atlas is a little too slab-sided for my tastes. Sometimes a company updates a car just to update it. Not all mid-cycle refreshes are created equal. What might be important to you is that it looks good, it’s as big inside as the Superdome, and you can afford it. Maybe the small little details that are so important to car reviewers and enthusiasts are not, in fact, important to you. A Kia Telluride is better, sure, but do you really want to wait for one? If you want the most luxurious and probably best three-row SUV, a BMW dealer will happily help you locate and vacate your wallet in exchange for an X7. If you want the truckiest thing you can buy with three rows, try a Tahoe or Expedition. There may be no ethical consumption in capitalism, but you still gotta buy a car sometimes. Now, for 2024, the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport have become simplified and more feature-rich to compete with the sudden crowded world of three-row crossovers. ![]() That the company added on the five-seat-only Atlas Cross Sport was more a reflection of consumer sentiment than practicality, but it’s a car company. The Atlas was bigger than a Tiguan but cheaper than a Touareg. Prior to that, Volkswagen offered only the completely fine Tiguan (also a smart play, and big seller) and kinda cool Touareg–a vehicle with a name as hard to pronounce as its price tag was difficult to justify. This was before the Kia Telluride, Grand Cherokee L, and way ahead of the Grand Highlander. Neither the best, nor worst, vehicle in its segment, Volkswagen realized a key selling point of big crossovers would be a third-row the company figured it could build a reasonably nice and reasonably affordable SUV-like thing with enough room for seven passengers. One of the best ideas to come out of Wolfsburg was the 2017 introduction of the Volkswagen Atlas. Even before Dieselgate and VW’s road to EV Damascus moment, the products started to get better while retaining some of the company’s heritage. To the company’s credit, it seems to have figured this out rather quickly. ![]() Some of this was the inevitable outcome of Dieselgate in 2015, but something way worse happened to Volkswagen: Kia and Hyundai figured out how to make better cars, right around the time VW was cratering its own brand value. Sales went up, for a while, before crashing down. This gambit of making cheaper and duller Volkswagens almost worked. Sure, the company made some great cars, like the Golf R, but that was the exception, not the rule. It tried to become a world-tackling company with a vehicle for everyone things became a little bit cheaper, with the company trading on its past to cover up the creeping beigeness. Plus, it had a little flower pot built into the interior!Īt some point, roughly around the de-contented B7 Passat or neue Rabbit, Volkswagen decided it wanted to become another Toyota and lost some of that charm. The New Beetle wasn’t rear-wheel drive, rear-engined, but it was cute and reasonably affordable. Even as the company grew it mostly maintained its Volkswageness. As those kids grew up, Volkswagen grew with them, adding the sporty Golf, pleasing Jetta, and yuppie Passat. Volkswagen’s popularity in this country stems originally from the Beetle, which was a peculiar and lovable product, well-timed and especially well-marketed to a generation of young people. It’s a pragmatic exercise in late capitalism and, properly spec’d, the exact right car for the person who isn’t exactly sure what they want. “This is our most profitable vehicle” a Volkswagen product planner bragged during the brief morning introduction to the 2024 VW Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport and, frankly, that nicely sums up the pair of big crossovers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |