"Talk about a ‘campervan’ and you’re almost certainly thrusting a picture of a VW into the listener’s mind. It's the benchmark. The yardstick. The trendsetter. And that makes each generation of VW Camper very important. The iconic splitties "
VW and emissions: A decade on, do you still dig your Dub?
Will a decade of fallout stop you from loving the brand?
Emissions. These figures were always nebulous.
Take a look at yourself. Do you really, truly, understand what the relative density of a particular particulate, a particular noxious chemical, released per kilometre, per minute, per hour – actually means?
And if you do – and you’re not a professional scientist or an academic researcher – how strongly does it affect your car-buying decision?
No one, of course, likes to think that the automotive choices they make are killing polar bears.
There is one world. There is one Earth. And if we fail to regulate properly, it won’t be long until the throbbing, sweating, oily, fossil-burning machines we love will be outlawed forever.
When the bombshell revelations of the Volkswagen emissions scandal first broke over a decade ago, it triggered a massive, industry-wide reassessment of how we measure what comes out of a tailpipe. It was the ultimate wake-up call. Laboratory loopholes were slammed shut, replaced by brutal real-world driving tests, and the entire automotive landscape was forced to rapidly accelerate its investment in clean vehicle innovations.
A decade later, the prediction has largely come true. Many of us now rely on low-emission vehicles, hybrids, or pure EVs for the mundane daily round – saving the raw, glorious mechanical soul of a classic V8 or a tuned petrol turbo for weekend leisure and sporting escapes.
But looking back at the dust settled from the scandal that was supposed to rock the brand to its foundations, the ultimate question remains for the enthusiasts. Did the headlines actually change your loyalty, or did they fail to stop you digging your Dub?
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