Volkswagen Pushes to Develop SUV and Pick-Up Truck for American Market

For the past few years, Volkswagen has been scheming and plotting and thinking up ways to take over as the world’s leader in automotive production. Last year, VW made a major leap for that number one spot, too, bypassing GM and moving into the on deck position, just behind Toyota.

However, in recent months, Volkswagen’s growth has stalled out, largely due to the fact that they are having trouble capitalizing on the United States’ market. This failure can primarily be contributed to one fact: Volkswagen has problems bulking up.

America, no doubt, is all about that BIGGER IS ALWAYS BETTER mindset. We want women with a big ass and big breasts. We want fat double cheeseburgers with stacks of bacon flipped on there. We want meaty, ferocious trucks to slash through the back roads of America’s underbelly. That’s just who we are.

Volkswagen has been slow on the uptake, though. Sure, they keep cranking out Car of the Year awards and pretty sick luxury rides (Euro styled, thumbs down), but if they want to hit that number one spot in the world, they’re going to have to do a whole lot better in the good ole USA.

Volkswagen seems to understand this, and in an interview with Reuters yesterday, they said that they will be debuting an SUV concept at the Detroit Auto Show next month in order to capitalize on the lucrative United States’ crossover market. This concept is said to be a five-seat version of the seven-passenger SUV that VW has already committed to building at its Chattanooga, Tennessee plant, beginning in 2016.

According to reports, this SUV will not be the only investment aimed at the US market, either. It is believed that Volkswagen is currently aiming at developing a pick-up truck for the mid-size market.

Bernd Osterloh, VW’s top labor representative and a member of the carmaker’s panel shaping U.S. strategy, says, “We need more models [in the United States] … If we had a pick-up truck today, we would perhaps already be at 600,000 (vehicle sales). If Volkswagen did end up seriously pushing a pick-up inside of the United States, it would be the first time since the 1980s and mark a huge turning point for Volkswagen’s pursuit of taking down Toyota.