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Volkswagen AG
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| Volkswagen own several of the UKs most popular brands in the form of Volkswagen itself plus Audi, SEAT and Skoda, plus the luxury brand Bentley, and supercar manufacturers Lamborghini and Bugatti. | |
| VW takeovers have often been exciting and hugely significant for different reasons. In our opinion, the most important take over was of course Audi back in 1964 as it formed the basis for the group as we know it today; VW built new ranges of Volkswagens on the back of the competent Audi 80 and Audi 100 ranges. Meanwhile, Audi picked up the development of VW's 4x4 systems and this lead to huge success for the Audi Quattros, and ultimately the large number of 4x4 systems that are available today in many of the groups cars. | | | In the early 90s VW also aquired SEAT and Skoda and built on the success of their merger with Audi by perfecting the manufacture of a number of different brands of car from common 'platforms'. Today, VW's major platforms can be used as the basis of many cars, the most significant being the Golf or "A" platform which is used, of course for the VW Golf, but also for the new VW Beetle, Audi A3, SEAT Leon, Skoda Fabia, the Audi TT, and more. VW are also taking the common platform to new levels by building even more new variants based on the existing cars - for example, in 2004 they introduced the Golf plus based on the Generation 5 Golf, and more recently revealed the CrossGolf based again on the same car. Like other manufacturers they have also released new convertible coupe variants of some of their cars. | | | VW's other recent takeovers include Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. The Bently takeover was interesting because it initially appeared that VW were getting both Bently and Rolls Royce, and indeed the purchase included the manufacture of Rolls Royce cars, but not it turned out the name itself; that was owned by Rolls Royce Aero, and was subsequenty sold to VW's major rival BMW, and VW only got the right to the name for a limited period. Despite this, the company are making a success of the Bently name, and are releasing some great new cars wearing the famous badge. | | | The Bugatti takeover in 1998 allowed VW to produce the incredible Veyron which may well hold the title of fastest motor car ever produced for some considerable time. It's widely believed that the cost of developing and producing the car was many times the revenue generated, despite each one having a price well in excess of $1,000,000. It's likely that it will be a long time before another manufacturer produces a more powerful and capable production car than this fantastic machine. | |
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Volkswagen models
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