Volkswagen is an automobile producer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. VW, as it is abbreviated, was initially established by the German Labor Front in 1937. By 1946, 1,000 Volkswagen cars were being produced each month.
Volkswagen is the earliest vehicle in the Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi, SEAT, Bentley Motors, Bugatti Automobiles, Lamborghini, Škoda Auto and heavy goods vehicle producer Scania.
Volkswagen translates as “people’s car” in German. Its current catchphrase is Das Auto (“The Car,” in English). Its previous German tagline was “Out of Love for the Car,” or, “For Love of the Automobile.”
VW’s first shipment of Volkswagen cars to Canada arrived in Toronto in December 1952. By 1955, Canadian sales warranted the building of a Volkswagen plant on a 32-acre site on Scarboro’s Golden Mile.
On July 15, 2008, Volkswagen declared it would build an automobile assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The plant manufactures cars exclusively intended for North America so VW can be more competitive with North American market leaders Toyota and Honda. Production is planned to start in early 2011 and is anticipated to end more than five years of losses in the world’s largest automobile market.
With 6,110,115 Volkswagen cars sold in 2008, VW ranked as the world’s third-largest car maker.
In 2009, the Volkswagen AG Supervisory Board endorsed the formation of an incorporated automotive group with Porsche under Volkswagen’s direction. Also in 2009, Volkswagen AG reached a universal agreement to institute a secure, long-standing calculated affiliation with Suzuki. Volkswagen purchased 19.9% of Suzuki’s issued shares.
Volkswagen announced its newest Polo BlueMotion model in February of 2010. It’s equipped with a 1.2-liter TDI three-cylinder common rail diesel engine rated at 75 PS and 133 foot pounds of torque from 2000 rpm. This model produces 91g/km of CO2 and has a collective cycle fuel expenditure of 80.7 miles per gallon.