Five minutes with Frank Maguire, vice president, sales and marketing for Volkswagen in North America - International Trends - Brief Article

Automotive Industries, June, 2002

The next year promises to be quite busy for Frank Maguire, vice president sales and marketing for Volkswagen in the U.S. and Canada.

Not only are VW sales up and expected to continue to be up but the brand also launches three new high-profile vehicles and enters two completely new segments.

All this activity has detractors saying the company is losing its way. Is Volkswagen leaving behind its customers or just logically expanding its scope? Maguire answered this question and more in a recent interview with senior editor Andrea Wielgat.

Q. Is Volkswagen losing its identity?

A. I guess we don't feel like we are losing our identity at all. The way we feel is that we've maintained our identity by staying true to our brand values and the psychographics of our customer. We sell cars to a certain lifestyle to a psychographic set of principles. It doesn't matter whether or not you're selling a $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 car or a $15,000 car. There are customers in all those price ranges that fit the brand Volkswagen.

Q. Are new segments the key to Volkswagen's future?

A. Most definitely. You always measure your success or failure in this business on new car volume. There's a lot of ways to get additional new car volume but the one that works the best is absolutely new product. Seventy-live percent of this whole battle is new product and we'll continue to introduce new product. And we will do it in the Volkswagen way.

Q. Which is?

A. Which is trying to provide a product to the consumer that is German engineered, affordable and really hits the sweet spot.

Q. So we can expect to see the VW range grow significantly in the next couple of years?

A. Within the next year you're going to see three brand new products. You're going to see the new Beetle convertible. You're going to see the Touareg and you're going to see the Phaeton. I think you're going to see quite an onslaught of new vehicles from the brand in the next couple of years.

Q. Are you still looking at a U.S. plant?

A. To be honest, it will be very difficult to double and triple your sales by sourcing cars from Europe. We're going to have to have some sources outside of Europe if we're going to continue those kinds of volumes.