Wolfsburg, Germany (dpa) –
Eager to hoist sales, the Volkswagen car company
will shortly open a glossy customer centre on a 25- hectare complex featuring
cinemas, works of art and a five-star Ritz Carlton hotel at its Wolfsburg
headquarters.
Volkswagen’s management predicts the glossy new “Autostadt” (car city) will
lure more than 300,000 customers to Wolfsburg annually, and that 100,000 of
them will make use of such outings to collect new cars and drive them away.
Volkswagen’s 850-million-mark (425-million-dollar) project is arousing
considerable curiosity in the competitive world of car manufacture, not least
because it portends a radical change in the way Germans normally buy new
vehicles.
But VW staff are swift to reject suggestions that their move might cut out the
traditional car dealer. “What we are doing here is to open up our doors to the
public, offering them a chance of informing themselves about our plans and
visions,” says Stefan Vogel, a communication leader at the newly created
Autostadt company.
“Having people show up here to personally collect their vehicles from the VW
production centre is not a threat to the traditional car dealer,” he
insists.
Vogel says people look for proven quality when buying cars, but they were also
often influenced by image or emotional background reasons when making a
choice. In the next 12 months, he predicts people will stream to the car-
making town in Lower Saxony. Some, however, will probably want to increase
their knowledge of what is on offer at VW before making a decision, says
Vogel.
Visits to the world’s biggest car manufacturing plant will turn into “family
outings” with members taking advantage of the variety of entertainment
facilities provided, and perhaps overnighting at the 166-room Ritz Carlton,
Vogel believes. The Autostadt project will bring with it 1,200 new jobs – 800
of them in the car consultation and sales areas, 400 in catering.
“Combining business with pleasure will be a chief attraction,” predicts
Vogel. – “Families will be able to relax in the entertainment area, while car
lovers learn all they ever wanted to know about the latest VW- produced
models”
Nostalgia will be catered for in the various pavilions displaying Bentley,
Lamborghini and early Volkswagen-made cars. There will also be Audi, Seat and
Skoda pavilions. At 60 points in the huge glass welcoming arena, visitors will
be able to consult with salesmen and participate in car “simulator” tests.
Later, on receiving their car keys, visitors will head through a tunnel leading
to soaring twin towers where hundreds of gleaming cars just off the assembly
lines will be waiting to be driven away by proud owners.
The VW Autostadt will be inaugurated at a gala ceremony on May 31, on the eve
of the Expo 2000 world’s fair opening in Hanover. VW first began manufacturing
cars in Wolfsburg back in 1938, after tens of thousands of Germans had been
deployed by the Nazis building the country’s network of autobahns, and there
was a boom in private car ownership.
