When Volkswagen wanted to go to the top
08/13/2022
It was October 2001 when the Volkswagen D1 project was presented in Automobil Revue No. 42/2001. The title: "With "Project D1", VW dares to enter the top league."
The real name would not be announced until the end of the year, and the plan was to produce 100 cars per day in the new "Transparent Factory" in Dresden, according to Max Nötzli's introductory report.
However, the editor-in-chief also brought up a hot topic:
"The question that is currently being hotly debated both inside and outside the VW organization: Will Piëch leave his successor Bernd Pischetsrieder a pearl with the D1, or will the pull-up turn into a megaflop?"
Piëch had obviously intended the car as a weapon for the huge markets in South East Asia, North and South America; sales in Germany were less important to him, so 20,000 vehicles per year were quite realistic. In October 2001, Nötzli wrote that the D1 had everything it needed to enter the luxury class, such as air suspension or engines up to the 6.0-liter W12 and all-wheel drive for the more powerful models.
Today, of course, we know more. In around 16 years (up to 2016), a total of 84,235 VW Phaetons (as the car was then called) were built. The highest output was achieved in 2011 with 11,166 units; in the other years, the production figures were almost always in the four-digit range and thus far from the theoretically possible 50,000 to 75,000 cars built per year. Even the 20,000 that Piëch saw as realistic were missed by a long way.
Not that the VW Phaeton was a bad car. Owners loved the car, and test drivers also had positive things to say. The car also sold relatively well in China. Nevertheless, Volkswagen decided against a successor, and the emissions scandal certainly played a role in this decision. Incidentally, Pischetsrieder only remained Chairman of the Board of Management at Volkswagen until 2006, so he was only partly responsible for the project's failure, if you want to call it that.
Anyone interested in the beginnings of the VW Phaethon should refer to the article in AR 42/2001 . Like the entire 2001 issue of the Automobil Revue , it can be found in full yesterday on Zwischengas. There is, of course, much more to discover that we may have already forgotten after 21 years ...
