Volkswagen and the 500 HP Golf

Concept cars are awesome. Sure, more often than not, they rarely come to fruition in any form remotely resembling what they originally pointed to. But it is still fun to look at the future that will never be and try and glean the bits that will survive. This VW experiment is another of those. You are looking at the Volkswagen Design Vision GTI concept. It was on display at this year’s Worthersee VW event, and it is completely crazy.

After taking design cues from various GTIs of the past, the body has been stretched, squashed, and widened into this fully modern form that still appears to obviously be a GTI. That’s no small feat. But the outside is just the beginning. The concept GTI is powered by a twin-turbo VR6 TSI engine that makes 503 HP and 413 lb/ft of torque. That all runs through a DSG dual-clutch transmission and the power eventually ends up at all four wheels. Top Gear has a good write-up on the car with more details.

Is this the best ad campaign of all time?

That is an actual ad for the ’62 Volkswagen. I think it’s brilliant. And it is just one in a series of very clever ads that Volkswagen used in the late 50s/early 60s. Caught At The Curb has a series of posts collecting many of the original ads and they are well worth a look. As to whether or not this is the best campaign of all time, it is of course arguable. But they are certainly in the conversation, and Advertising Age did deem them just that back in 1999. There is an interesting entry on the VW advertising over at wikipedia.