VW Brand Car Production By Model : 1990-99

Going back to the 1990's shows how much brands can change in not that many years. They can also have regional differences that we are not aware of. Both of these scenarios apply to the VW brand of car sales. We will go through the models one by one with some explanation.

1) Golf. This model has been around since 1974, now up to the 7th generation. It replaced the original Beetle but the latter went on for sometime after the Golf's arrival so ended up not replacing it. Production volume has been very consistent and it continues as popular as ever.

2) Passat/Santana. The Passat medium/large sized car was first released in 1973 and the Santana in 1981, the latter went under other names also. It has been a successful model also and in China it has been extremely popular.

The Passat from 1993.

3) Polo/Derby. The Polo super mini hatchback came out in 1975, so was well established by the 1990's. The saloon (sedan) version was known as the Derby.

4) Gol/Parati/Voyage. The Gol is a subcompact 3/5 door hatchback model made for South America. As a wagon it is known as the Parati and a 4 door saloon named the Voyage. It has been a big hit, but many in the West will know nothing of it.

5) New Beetle. This compact car arrived in 1998 as a modern take on the original, in style at least. As for substance there is little in common. It's retro look was successful but only to a point, as is the usual for this sort of vehicle.

6) Lupo. This city car also came out in 1998, to slip under the Polo as that model grew in size. Production numbers would suggest to me it wasn't the success VW would have hoped, but the idea was right.

The 1998 Lupo (Italian for wolf). Named after Wolfsburg. 

7) Sharan. This large MPV was to take on the likes of the Renault Espace. It has always been made in Portugal along with the SEAT Alhambra and at this time the Ford Galaxy. Production numbers would suggest it was reasonably successful.

8) Old Beetle. The iconic Beetle (or Käfer in German) started back in 1938 and was a strong seller even in the early 1990's. However, by the end of the decade, production had fallen away badly. Understandable for a car of its age.

9) Taro (Hilux). I'm not sure if it should be here, but this was the Toyota pick up of the day made in Germany by VW from 1989. Most of that time it was classified as a commercial vehicle, but toward the end of its life, drifted across to be classified as a car. I did as VW seemed to do, but maybe I misread how VW did things. 

10) Pointer/Logus. Have you heard of this one? It was essentially a European Ford Focus. The 5 door hatchback was called the Pointer and the 2 door coupe the Logus. It was made in Brazil as a joint venture arrangement with Ford. 

11) Corrado/Scirocco. This sports car was known as the Scirocco from 1974 to 1992 and the Corrado from 1988 to 1995. I'm not sure why the large overlap but by the time the Scirocco was gone, the Corrado was almost finished as well. In the 1990's, production was not very large. 

12) Apollo/Gacel/1500. The Apollo (also called the Verona) was a small saloon car and another joint venture with Ford, this time the Ford Orion. The Gacel was an Argentinian built 4 door version of the Gol. The 1500 was the Chrysler Avenger and when in 1980 VW bought Chrysler Argentina, it inherited the model. For some reason, VW lumped these three unrelated models together in the statistics so I had no choice but to follow suit. 

All the figures below are in thousands. They are global production figures released by VW. Why other manufacturers are not as open as VW I do not understand. All competitors watch each other anyway and have this sort of data in greater detail than we will ever have. This basic statistics as presented here is of interest to the public, and good publicity as well. Well done VW. 

Having said that, this article represents some hours of work. It's not handed to me on a platter. I hope you enjoy it. 

	Golf	Pas	Polo	Jett	Gol	Beet	Lupo	Shar	Beet	Taro	Poin	Corr	App	Tot
		San	Der	Vent	P/V	New			Old		Logu	Scir	Gac
90	888	393	226	221	179	-	-	-	85	-	-	30	22	2,044
91	801	427	325	176	176	-	-	-	86	-	-	23	36	2,050
92	965	358	306	179	223	-	-	-	87	-	10	19	28	2,176
93	795	255	176	238	288	-	-	-	105	-	44	9	-	1,910
94	853	254	159	206	317	-	-	-	96	-	51	4	-	1,940
95	815	420	397	223	367	-	-	20	33	3	62	2	-	2,342
96	826	461	516	203	432	-	-	56	40	7	28	-	-	2,569
97	626	611	598	231	477	-	-	59	36	1	-	-	-	2,638
98	901	740	588	222	351	107	65	56	36	-	-	-	-	3,067
99	880	670	411	400	319	160	90	50	36	-	-	-	-	3,016

Picture source: NetCarShow.com.

Scotland Top 20 Models : 2000-13

The Vauxhall Corsa has been top in Scotland every year since 2007

Scotland has its own car society, and the accompanying chart below is available from the Scottish Government website. It show sales for the top 20 models. So what has taken place north of the border in the 21st century?

French models seem to be the major, consistent losers. Renault gave up discounting too much and went more for profit instead, as they should. This gave US models the top rankings, with German marques benefiting too. Japanese models have had a mixed result, with Korean cars not figuring that highly.

The colour coding of cars is based on which nation the brand is associated, rather than who owns it. Dark blue is the USA, Yellow Germany, aqua the rest of Europe, and pink for Asia.

Model	13	12	11	10	09	08	07	06	05	04	03	02	01	00
Vauxhall Corsa	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	6	5	5	4	3	7	7
Ford Fiesta	2	2	2	3	2	2	5	5	6	4	5	5	6	8
Ford Focus	3	4	3	4	3	4	2	1	2	3	3	4	4	3
Vauxhall Astra	4	3	4	2	4	3	3	2	3	7	7	6	8	4
Volkswagen Golf	5	8	9	9	5	6	8	7	8	8	8	8	10	10
Volkswagen Polo	6	6	7	8	12	9	14	9	10	10	10	11	11	9
Nissan Qashqai	7	7	5	6	9
Fiat 500	8	9	20	14
Renault Clio	9	5	8	5	10	5	4	4	4	2	2	1	1	1
BMW 1 Series	10	13	16	16	15
BMW 3 Series	11	12	14	19	20	13	13	13		15	11	12	13	14
Peugeot 208/7/6	12		13	18	8	7	7		7	6	6	7	5	5
Nissan Juke	13	15	12
Kia Sportage	14
Toyota Yaris	15	14				16		17	13	17
MINI	16	10	10	10	7	8	12	15	14	18	18
Audi A1	17
Honda Jazz	18	16	15	17	17	17	20	14	17
Seat Ibiza	19	19	19
Vauxhall Mokka	20
Vauxhall Insig/Vec		11	6	11	11	14	9	18	18			20	19	19
Audi A3		17	18	12	14	18
Hyundai i10		18
Citroen C3		20
Renault Megane			11	7	6	11	6	3	1	1	1	2	2	2
Mazda 2			17	15	19
Vauxhall Zafira				13		15	16	12	20	19
Honda Civic				20	16	10	10	10	9	16	16	14	16
Fiat Punto/Gr Pun					13		11	8		9	9	10	3	6
Ford Mondeo					18	12	15	11	11	11	14	15	14	16
Citroen C4						19	19
Audi A4						20		20
Honda CR-V							17
Mazda 6							18
Peugeot 307								16	12	12	12	18
Nissan Micra								19			13	16	17	15
Ford Ka									15	14	15	13	18	11
Nissan Almera									16	20		19	20	20
Toyota Corolla									19
Citroen Xsara										13	19	9	9	18
Renault Laguna											17	17		13
Mercedes C Class											20
Rover 25												12	12	12
Citroen Saxo												19	15	17
Volkswagen Passat												20

The list gives me the impression that Scots car buyers are generally conservative and don't change on a whim. Actually that sounds like me too! It's something different and I hope you like it. Oh, you will notice it is still listed under labels as 'Nation - UK'. For now at least.

The Honda Jazz has been in the top 20 for the past nine years