The 2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz is more than an homage to another era. It’s representative of Volkswagen’s American market conundrum.
The German automaker is celebrating its 75th year in America, an astounding feat of marketing for a company established by Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s and popularized in the United States by an ad agency whose co-founder, William Bernbach, was Jewish. Volkswagens sold stateside because they were unlike anything being offered by Detroit at the time. Vee-dubs eschewed chrome, fins, annual model-changes and gobs of horsepower for homely looks, few frills, excellent build quality and economical operation.
Certainly, Volkswagen’s Type 2 Microbus was that. It wasn’t about driving fast, as its meager rear-mounted, air-cooled engine provided leisurely acceleration. And its style was proudly utilitarian.
VW’s fashion was anti-fashion. However, VW misinterpreted its success. The easiest way to describe it is to quote a Volkswagen dealer principal from Virginia who once told me that Volkswagen still didn’t grasp the American market after all these years in the country.
And they have continually validated his assertion. Consider this. After showing the Type 2-themed Bulli concept at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Volkswagen offered Americans the 2012 Volkswagen Routan, which was little more than a Chrysler minivan in drag.
Unconventionality made the anti-establishment Microbus a unique lifestyle statement the automaker has never replicated. That’.
