When the VW GTI came out half a century ago, it created a new category of vehicle – the hot hatch. That is to say, an economy car that was more than just economical. It was also fun. The Germans have a word for this that does not translate into a single English word. It is fahrvergnügen. It means the fun (enjoyment) of driving. As in for its own sake – not merely to get from A to B. A bus does that, too – but there’s not much fahrvergnügen to be experienced.
The first – and subsequent – GTIs were not like that. VW took the Rabbit (also called Golf) and hotted up the engine, firmed up the suspension and made it a lot more fun to drive. It is interesting to note that the early GTIs were not especially powerful – or fast. By today’s standards – by the numbers – a mid-’80s GTI doesn’t come across like much fun. Its engine only made about 110 horsepower and it took about 9 seconds for the GTI of that era to reach 60 MPH. There is nothing you can buy today that’s that slow – or has that little power. But there’s not much you can buy today that’s as fun as that GTI was. Put another way, power isn’t the same thing as fun. It can be fun, of course. It is not the essential thing that makes a car fun.
VW had a word for what was. 
The early GTI was one of many fun cars that weren’t very powerful or very quick but which still put a smile on your face – which is something a 200 plus horsepower crossover appliance that can get to 60 in six seconds isn’t nearly as likely to do. Neither is an EV, no matter how powerful and quick it is.
Dodge got an education about this in the form of the sales disaster – which is putting it mildly – that happened after it decided to turn the popular Charger into a battery-powered device. The EV Charger was much more powerful – and quicker – than the Charger with an engine that got cancelled after the end of the 2023 model year. The assumption was – apparently – that it was power/performance that sold people on the Charger and that it didn’t matter what the source of that power/performance was. Put another way, it did not – so they thought – matter that the engine was not there anymore because more power/performance was.
It turned out they were very wrong about that.
VW ought to have learned from that. Instead, it is in the process of repeating the same mistake. The next generation GTI is a device. It has twice the power (223 horsepower) of the first-generation GTI and is much quicker (0-60 in just over six seconds) but is it fun? Does it possess fahrvergnügen?
How could it?
A battery is a battery. An electric motor is an electric motor. Is there anyone who gets excited about batteries or motors? More to the point, is there any difference between one brand of battery (or motor) and another? Maybe price. When you’re at the supermarket and need some AAA batteries, you might be swayed to buy Duracell rather than EverReady, depending on the price of each. You might also choose one over the other based on what you’ve heard (or experienced) about the relative longevity of one battery vs. another.
The same considerations apply with regard to EV batteries – and motors.
Fahrvergnügen doesn’t enter into it.
How could it?
Having personally driven dozens of different make/model EVs, I can attest from experience that they are all pretty much the same and not much fun – because they are one-dimensional devices. They accelerate authoritatively; much more so than most gas-engined cars. But what else? there’s not much fahrvergnügen to it because basically you just sit there and push down on a pedal that doesn’t even have the emotionally satisfying appeal of a gas pedal that’s connected to a throttle – that you can feel. Rather, that doesn’t feel like the pedal of a car-driving game on your XBox or Nintendo.
VW says – according to Ward’s Automotive – that the battery powered GTI has a “driving mode developed specifically for Volkswagen’s latest electric model (that) alters throttle response, steering weighting and suspension settings while simultaneously switching the cockpit graphics and ambient lighting to a red display theme.”
Xbox or Nintendo, again.
There is no throttle in a battery-powered vehicle. So VW simulates the “response” of one. It is of a piece with the fake engine sounds emanating from other battery powered vehicles, such as the Dodge Charger and the simulated “shifting” from a transmission that isn’t there, as in Hyundai battery-powered vehicles.
Perhaps the most galling part is this thing isn’t even economical – or affordable. Or practical. A 1985 GTI was all of those things. Its gas tank held about 14 gallons of gas, which gave it a driving range of about 420 miles. More than 40 years later, the battery-powered GTI might go 263 miles on a full charge, VW says. There’s not a lot of fahrvergnügen when you’re not fahring (going somewhere). The ’85 GTI listed for about $9,300 when it was new. That’s about $29k today – which is a lot more in both inflated and real-world terms (i.e., it’s not just that things cost more dollars but that most of us have fewer dollars to buy them with) but still well shy of the $45k VW is asking for the battery powered GTI.
There’s not much fahrvergnügen if you can’t afford any.
At least we knew this was coming, well in advance. VW stopped offering a manual transmission in the gas-engined GTI after the end of the 2024 model year. This took away a lot of the fahrvergnügen. An automatic-only GTI being something just shy of a battery-powered GTI. The removal of the manual after 2024 can be seen as anticipatory. In the get-used-to-it sense.
There is some goods news. VW will still be selling a GTI with an engine (but not with a manual transmission) in the United States for a little while longer. The battery-powered doppelgänger will be sold in Europe at first. But the plan is made clear. And there’s not much fahrvergnügen in it.
Maybe not much VW after awhile, either.
Because why bother? A device is just another device, after all.
. . .
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Socialist Europe goes full retard:
‘The EU has made it official. Every brand-new passenger car, van, truck, and bus sold or first registered across the bloc must now carry interior-facing cameras that track the driver’s gaze, head movements, and attention levels.
‘Advanced Driver Distraction Warning or ADDW, forms part of the final phase of the updated ‘General Safety Regulation’ for all vehicles. The compulsory hardware activates at low speeds and tightens requirements as velocity increases, issuing escalating visual, acoustic, or haptic warnings when the driver looks away for too long.
‘Current rules state the distraction cameras must operate without biometric identification or facial recognition of occupants and must function as a closed-loop system that retains only data necessary for immediate operation. No video is supposed to leave the vehicle for authorities under the present framework.
‘In both the truck patents and the EU rules now live, the justification remains identical: safety. The hardware — cameras, sensors, data recorders — creates the permanent capacity for escalation.
‘Software updates, regulatory expansions, or integration with digital identity systems could transform today’s “warning only” cameras into tomorrow’s behavior scorers, usage trackers, or remote intervention tools.’
https://modernity.news/2026/07/07/eu-mandates-dystopian-in-car-cameras-to-monitor-every-drivers-face/
This shit crosses a red line for me. European cars should be totally boycotted and shunned in the US from now on. Screw them and everything they stand for.
Gott en Himmel!!!
The fakeness and gayness of EV fever just won’t wear out, it seems. And it’s not intended for our benefit either…
The panopticon will not be satiated until all actions and things worldwide are recorded and manipulated to the benefit of (((government worldwide))).
German cars aren’t the problem, it’s our (((governments))) that are the problem.
All (((government))) is bad, a wise man told me ages ago. I thought he meant communist, but have come to understand that it’s actually all forms of government; republics, democracies; dictatorships, and monarchies, all of them, eventually become bad, as the the truly evil figure out how penetrate and control our money and government to control all governments worldwide.
“To know who controls you, look only to those you may not criticize “, as Voltaire said centuries ago, and who can we not criticize todat???
Oy Vey, you Goyims should by now, otherwise to ahuddap and take it! If not
The Waning of Volkswagen
VW has come a cropper:
‘Volkswagen said Thursday that it would cut the number of models it offered by as much as half to reduce costs and better compete with Chinese companies. The plan, released after a board meeting, seemed to be a tacit acknowledgment that the company had gotten too big and complicated and needed to slim down.
‘In recent days, German press reports had suggested that the company was preparing to lay off 100,000 workers by the end of the decade and close four factories in Europe. The company said it would aim to produce nine million cars a year, compared with a goal of 12 million before the Covid-19 pandemic and 10 million more recently.
‘In a video statement, Oliver Blume, Volkswagen’s chief executive, said there was a need to “get rid of excess capacity,” implying that the company could still close factories.
‘Left unclear by Thursday’s announcement was how many of Volkswagen’s 657,000 employees worldwide could lose their jobs as the company reduces production. The company’s profit fell 28 percent in the first quarter to 1.6 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, and its sales were down 2 percent.’ — NYT
https://archive.ph/0DlY6#selection-8449.0-8449.285
When statements like this one come out, you can assume that the reality is worse than they are letting on. VW’s problems are structural, exacerbated by Germany’s disastrous decision to side with its yankee occupiers and cut off cheap Russian energy. With high labor and energy costs, VW is screwed sideways.
As the article notes, ‘Labor representatives and political leaders from the German state of Lower Saxony have a majority on the company’s 20-person supervisory board.’ This European socialist setup means that VW’s executives will get sandbagged every step of the way as they shift into crisis management.
Hilariously, the Lügenpresse stenographer gratuitously claims that VW ‘needed to slim down to survive the global shift from fossil fuel [sic] cars to electric vehicles.’ Like deluded cult leaders warning that the world ends tomorrow, the Lügenpresse claims that internal combustion vehicles are on their last legs. Vroom, vroom!
Morning, Jim –
I pleaded (off the record) with people at VW to fight, back in 2016. I knew that admitting guilt – holy Stalin! – for “cheating” would be the end of VW, ultimately. They let the cancer infect them and did everything – just about – possible to aid its metastasis. It was a mere decade ago that VW had a line of brilliant TDI-powered cars that almost anyone could afford to buy, that got 50-plus MPG and were actually fun to drive. But these cars presented a big problem for the EV push that was then just building steam and so VW had to be crucified – and was. It obligingly mounted the cross and even bought the nails, too.
It’s as tragic as it is infuriating.
One can predict that the majority of labor union and state government representatives on VW’s board will push for closing overseas plants — such as Scout Motors — to preserve jobs in the Deutsche homeland.
That is, if they haven’t chugged so much EeeVee Kool-Aid that they fantasize Scout Motors will mint money in a US market that excludes the Chinese EeeVees that are eating VW’s lunch elsewhere.
What to do, what to do? As ol’ Simon and Garfunkel used to croon to Sixties housewives who wanted to dip their toe into the hip folk movement, Any way you look at it, you lose. 🙁
It is interesting that the evil monster Adolph Hitler, stood up for the people of his country, promoted those of merit, and pushed through a car that every worthy (working) man could own, called it the KDF (strength through joy) wagen, and was attacked by the entire western world and destroyed.
Meanwhile communists and socialists of every stripe made sure there were buses for the proles to ride to their miserable jobs and reserved cars of any kind for the connected, subdued and murdered the meritorious, and kept power in the smallest and meanest little men.
And “we won the Cold War”?
It sucks getting old and being smart. The older you get, the more you understand the evil of this world and the swindle.
The NSDAP implemented all kinds of policies that were for the people. After a German Hausfrau had a third child the families mortgage was cancelled. This was a slap across the face of the Jewish usurers. Hitler wanted the people to travel, so he had the cruise ship Gustloff built (named after a German officer murdered by a Jew in Davos Switzerland in 1936). The Gustloff was later sunk with 10000 refugees escaping the Red Rapist Army by a drunk Russian submarine captain.
Racial Hygiene was an important program to prevent mud sharks from interbreeding with inferior races and creating mongoloid monstrosities.
Of course one of the most infamous programs was sterilization where retards who would never be able to contribute to society were neutered so that their bad genes would not be passed on. This was basically “Eugenics”, similar to the policy the Jews in Israel practice daily on Palestinians when they decide to “mow the lawn”.
Another policy the Germans implemented was that they would never allow the cherished German women to serve as troops on the front line. This is a stark contrast to the goyim Russian sluts the Judeo-Bolshevics sent to the front lines to die either facing the highly professional Wehrmacht or to be machine gunned in the back by Jewish Kommisars.
Not just Palestinians, Israel has dealt with black Jews in a similar fashion.
https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/israel-admits-targeting-ethiopian-jews-compulsory-contraception
I sort of wonder how much of the awful stuff we’re told about National Socialist Germany is just Jewish projection, as the horror stories from the Soviet Union slowly percolate out of Russia into the West..
Anyway, the Germans should go back to making VWs that are affordable and enjoyable and not electric. Considering who has migrated to Germany over the past few decades, they might want to revisit eugenics, too.
“It is interesting that the evil monster Adolph Hitler, stood up for the people of his country,”
7.4 million Germans died as a result of Hitler instigating world war 2 in Europe
How was that standing up for his people?
OMG, what a disaster the EV GTI will be……….. can’t wait.
Loved the old GTI, wanted one in my youth but couldn’t find one used, but I did find a used CRX Si, and that was soooo much fun. Even AutoX’d it. I remember getting to within .2 or so seconds of a modified Miata with racing slicks on it, and I had the factory tires on mine (crappy).
Recently we had a Focus RS, also soooooo much fun. Wish ford would have kept that around, the current ST version not-so-much fun, if it’s still even around.
Are there any hot hatches w/manual left?
Another issue here is that the highest quality and fastest German automobiles were engineered for the speedlimitless autobahn. This was always the domain of Mercedes Benz, BMW and Porsche. VW could never keep up and never really tried. Even Audi when they went to 4wd could barely compete with the big boys.
Audi had a longitudinally mounted engine, but it was always front wheel drive first so the engine was in front of the transaxle which gave it an unbalanced weight distribution.
Porsche with its rear engine at least was great for drifting and didn’t suffer from understeer like the fwd VW and Audi. But the 911 is too light and too loud to be a grand tourer.
France excessively taxed engines over 2l and so could never compete. Jaguar was really the only European brand that came close to having a heavier and powerful rear wheel drive vehicle that could swallow up km’s at sustained speeds of over 100mph. But Jaguar had so many quality control issues.
Ford and Opel just didn’t compete with a big and heavy v8 powered Mercedes S class that could cruise at 120mph all day long in silence and safety. Only BMW really came close because Porsche’s 930 and then the Panamera both never really succeeded. This was where German cars were/are in a class of their own. A VW Golf GTI was far to light and far to underpowered to even get close.
VW did make a stab at it with the Phaeton, but it too was a flop. VW ended up buying Bentley and putting its W12 from the Phaeton in the engine bay so now they have a foot in the door. BMW has Rolls Royce with a 5.0l v12 IIRC, but Bentley and Rolls just don’t sell that many cars. Cadillac made a couple of attempts at competing with the big boys but it too failed. Ditto Alpha Romeo and Lancia. Ditto Lexus.
This really leaves the high performance, high price Autobahn Sturmer market to Mercedes and BMW, and I don’t think the Chinese will be able to compete here. Germany is the only country on the planet where it is legal to cruise at these speeds.
I seem to remember a couple of VW execs getting tossed into the clink over trying to keep the original GTI going. Tends to have a chilling effect. Not to mention the plants VW, Mercedes and BMW are closing are becoming military production sites, courtesy of wargov and the bankers who fund them. Americans, oops, I mean Germans need jobs!
Just ask Mark Rutte: https://www.zerohedge.com/military/rutte-touts-literally-billions-invested-drastically-ramp-natos-drone-capabilities
Money well-spent!
My 1974 VW Dasher equipped with a 4-speed manual transmission had a 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of 12.0 seconds. That car was fun. More fun was the 1984 1.6 liter Volkswagen Golf i rented for a week in the UK. Worst car I was ever a passenger in was a VW Beetle from the 1970s with an automatic transmission, slow as molasses when merging on a freeway, and allegedly had a heater, but it didn’t do much.
Volkswagen is currently facing its most radical restructuring in its 89-year history, with management evaluating plans that could result in up to 100,000 job cuts and the closure of four major German factories. The sweeping measures are aimed at reducing global headcount by roughly 15% amid rising Chinese competition and costly EV transitions
Volkswagen’s net profit margin for 2025 was approximately 2.14%.
Decline of Volkswagen stock price since March 31 2021, to today
(-76%)
“fun cars that weren’t very powerful or very quick”
Which is why there ever was such a thing as a Miata. God bless Mazda for giving me 20 years of an amazing driving experience. Until I could no longer drive one.
I wish VW had pushed back hard at Govco over Dieselgate, they must have a bunch of high priced lawyers on staff – give them something to do. Even if they ended up losing it’s better than rolling over and saying ‘please sir, may I have another’
Maybe this is why they don’t want you to own your own car?
Waymo Robotaxi “Snitches” On Two 15-Year-Olds Drinking & Shooting Orbeez Guns In Bay Area
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/waymo-robotaxi-snitches-two-15-year-olds-drinking-and-shooting-orbeez-guns-bay-area
Hi Landru,
You beat me to it! Tomorrow’s lead article will cover this!
What’s next?
A citation for fucking in the back seat?
Jeez, Louise.
Paradise by the dashboard light.
https://youtu.be/C11MzbEcHlw?is=AsOJUaYBLT7i01t1
Bench seats forever. 🙂
Snitches get stitches… and it should apply to ratting robots too.
At this point it doesn’t matter what the auto manufactures want as the only voice that matters is Govco’s.
Apparently GovCo wants the auto manufactures to go out of business. The real question is why.
Cui bono?
I just watched fahrvergnügen 2026. Dork in black climbs
out of a tiny shitbox appliance w Cali plate and plays with his cute little pocket foldup drone till it pisses people off.
XBox and Playstation are dead.
Nintendo’s Switch platform is on life support.
Heh, heh … that ad says ‘German-engineered.’
Then Eric tells us what German-engineered means today: ‘switching the cockpit graphics [sic] and ambient lighting to a red display theme.’ It’s your own little rolling whorehouse, in other words. Ilsa, your German-engineered digital assistant, adds to the lurid ambiance by cooing, ‘Stick it to me, big boy!’
‘Cockpit graphics’ means, we can assume, no actual gauges with — you know — red needles that move. I’ve never owned a vehicle (auto, motorcycle) with ‘cockpit graphics’ and pray that I never do.
As European companies habitually do, VW’s Scout Motors subsidiary is mining the patriotic angle with a red-white-‘n-blue “Spirit of ’26” SUV, a name which few Americans will ‘get’ since nothing much happened in ’26 except a disastrous, effed-up war.
Comically, a Road & Track stenographer moans that ‘it’s a nice-looking truck, which makes it all the more frustrating that you can’t buy one.’
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a71868315/scout-motors-spirit-of-26-traveler-suv-concept/
But wait, continues the pandering journo-ho: ‘Along with the concept SUV, the brand has unveiled a new lineup of patriotic merchandise inspired by the original Spirit of ‘76, with a few t-shirts, a pair of Igloo coolers, and even a retro-style baseball cap.’
Impressive! Thought I was receiving a V8, but all I got was this damned T-shirt. 🙁
What exactly is a “retro-style baseball cap?”
If I want a Bahstun baseball cap, I will cruise by Fenway Park and buy one.
Ain’t no “retro” involved, except for me, and my ancient memories from the 1960s.
With the $1.5 billion of citizens’ money that the South Carolina legislature has given Scout Motors, my wife and I — and every other South Carolinian — should get at least one free hat. We’re checking the mailbox every day, but ours still haven’t come.
Maybe I need to get out more, but I haven’t seen a single one of them hats yet. Or a T-shirt.
If you’d only have voted for Alvin Greene…
Maybe you should write a letter to Miss Lindsey. 🙂
I think Germany/Volkswagen lost their “cool” after Fast and Furious came out in 2001. That is when the Millennials and Gen-Xers switched to tats, Japanese cars and Vin Diesel. It was probably all a psyop orchestrated by Hollywood Jews. At least back then garage mechanics were tweaking the Nissans and Hondas and adding turbos and superchargers.
Now the Japanese have had to make way for Hyundai N-line models, but I doubt the “youth” are modding much any more.
You’re probably onto something with the Fast & Furious reference. Wikipedia says the eponymous films were inspired by a May 1998 VIBE magazine article titled ‘Racer X’. Though he did a solid job limning the social context of upper Manhattan, author Kenneth Li doesn’t sound like a libertarian car guy:
‘Two months before the big race, the boys at Speed and Sound, a tuner shop in Yonkers, relentlessly hammer away at Rafael Estevez’s civilian issue ’92 Civic. The transformation is sick. The stock engine has been replaced with a granite black motor [sic] borrowed from the Acura Integra GSR. Enlarged tubes of matte silver metal called headers [LOL] loop around the top of the engine bay. They are intended, along with the softball-size turbochargers affixed to the front of the GSR, to dramatically boost output.’
https://www.vibe.com/features/editorial/racer-x-rafael-estevez-kenneth-li-fast-and-furious-inspiration-may-1998-336369/
Fahrvergnügen just can’t compete with a $7 billion media franchise that pimps rice rockets. Now Germany, deprived of cheap Russian gas, can’t even compete as a base for auto production. Götterdämmerung, innit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iukUMRlaBBE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcm4oS9IaM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkf0IUp7ifA
They look like Jews, and that was the gayest throw from the old man I have ever seen. The boy never even hits the Passat anyway.
I have owned 9 VWs, 2 GTIs. The ’97 GTI put me off VW forever.
The first and second gen Golf/Jettas were great. They had excellent feel and a marvelous ability to carry speed in corners. However, the third gen, with its electronics, was a pig.
Once they grabbed their ankles to satisfy the Watermelons I knew it was over for sure.
Former ’89 GLI 16V owner here. By far the most fun car I’ve owned. It is just so sad what is happening to the company. They are losing ground in China and the US, closing plants at home. They lost their minds after Dieselgate and went full in on EVs as well as chasing the SUV trend alienating their core audience.
Their EVs are subpar, plagued with horrible software. The Buzz is such a cool vehicle that would have sold well if it had a conventional powertrain. People want to buy a $25k Golf. They don’t want a $37k ID 3.
100 percent, Klink –
Especially as regards the ID Buzz. It has great retro (and yet, modern) styling and really stands out in a crowd. If it had an engine instead of a battery and cost $35k or so rather $60k to start, I think VW would have had difficulty keeping up with demand for them.
Yeah, but….
I bought my 1960 type 2 pickup for US$200.00
Running condition, although butt ugly gray.
Hot rod der Motor, und wir fahren auf der Autobahn (actually, the back roads of New Mexico, where “cops” is an unknown concept).
Yes, indeedy. 🙂
Memories are made of this.
And when I *did* get busted, in Jemez Springs, the authoritay refunded my money, ruling the local constable was out of line for writing me a “ticket.”
Te lo juro. I stiil have the refunded check.
I have a Mk4 Jetta, a Wolfsburg made one. It’s not a GTI but a dull wagon (2.0L NA and 5-speed) and I love it. It’s been an absolute workhorse for me. It turned 25 years old, the age when a car becomes eligible for classic plates in my state. Weird to think but it’s going to get them because they are a 5 year renewal period instead of annual and no longer have to be subjected to emissions testing. It’s a simple enough car, crank windows, stick shift. I see no reason to not keep fixing it. Just did it’s 3rd timing belt at 283k couple of years ago, put a new clutch in this winter, rear wheel bearing finally went, too. Still running the original front wheel bearings the krauts put in Oct 2000 when it was assembled.