When I saw the latest two ads for the VW Golf GTI, at first I was a bit perplexed. They aren’t so much about the car--rather, they're about who drives the car and where life is taking him. But more on that in a second. VW has created a continuing storyline that is intentionally incomplete. Why? They want you, the...Read more

There are days when you have to wonder if the universe is run by a drunken frat boy with a sense of humor. Case in point: the latest Britney Spears video that pimps the 2012 VW Beetle. Let us not digress by going into the sordid career of this once-great superstar. That is what TMZ and MTV are for. We’re here t...Read more

How do you measure success? Is it popularity? How many Facebook fans you have? How many tweets you post? How much “product” you moved this quarter? How many loyal customers and conquest customers you measure? Well, any of those will do just fine if you’re Kia because they seemed to have checked all th...Read more

Australia is a place far away from where I live, a place where I am told beer and the beech are a religion, high-powered cars are well loved, Mad Max movies are considered high art, and Australian Rules Football is seen as a peaceful, collegial sport. Whether you agree with those assertions or not doesn't change the fa...Read more

The car, as we all know, is the greatest invention ever. It has been praised in print, music, on the web and particularly in film. There have been so many movies about cars that it’s hard to pick one that has had the most influence on viewers, but you can gauge which movie about cars has a) done the best box off...Read more

My cousin, a thirty-something up-and-comer, was looking for a new car. Not too fancy, but not too pedestrian, something that wasn’t a fuel pig, yet had lots of toys and bells and whistles. He does a fair bit of driving every year and likes comfort, decent performance, reliability, and just a little upscale feel. ...Read more

Some time ago I commented on an ad for the Lexus CT 200h and pointed out how it used music to convey the car’s message of clean and exciting fun. It was one in a long series of Lexus ads that used music and sound to define the brand. Music is one of the few things in life that humans are hardwired to understand (...Read more

My barber, a genuine Italian gentleman, who also speaks English, French, Arabic, and Yiddish with a lovely Italian accent, and who deeply cherishes almost all things Italian, drives a Subaru Legacy. This is a man who cares about every hair on my head and makes sure with exacting scissors and deftly handled electric sh...Read more

Depending on what a person ingests, you can not only get gas, but depending on your intestinal fortitude, you may also emit a noxious form thereof. Cars, an invention by us simians in suits and shoes, have taken the same design path. Ingest, combust, emit. Maybe a different design is in order as we get enough noxious ...Read more

Volkswagen built their reputation in North America on cars and trucks that were simple, robust, fun, practical and had a strong whiff of German engineering and design. They were clearly not Japanese cars -- far more solid and heavy-feeling. And compared to their other European counterparts, they stood apart. They were ...Read more