MetaFilter posts tagged with Volkswagen

Why's he calling me meat? I'm the one driving a Porsche.

JaredSeth — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:42:13 -0800

The acquisition of Porsche by Volkswagen, just weeks after a Porsche attempt to take over VW via a series of complex stock options backfired, appears to be the latest salvo in the longstanding feud between cousins Ferdinand Piech and Wolfgang Porsche. Back in May, Wolfgang Porsche sought investments from Qatar to shore up Porsche's finances and vowed that “Porsche AG will not be sold to Volkswagen.”

Kraft durch (Schaden)freude

Skeptic — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:53:01 -0800

Short selling is basically the practice of selling borrowed shares, with the intention of purchasing them back later at a lower price. It amounts to a placing a bet on the share value dropping, is a favoured move of hedge funds, and has been recently blamed for much of the current economic mayhem. However, when last Sunday Porsche tersely announced that, in addition to its 44% of Volkswagen's shares, it had secured 31% through cash-settled call options, the invisible hand of the market gave those short-sellers an atomic wedgie: Since the German state of Lower Saxony holds just over 20% of VW, Porsche's disclosure meant that, in fact, there were only 5% of VW's shares left on the market, whereas traders were shorting for about 13% of those shares. This set off the "Mother of All Short Squeezes". Traders scrambled to buy those few shares to cover their short positions, sending the share price of VW upwards to ridiculous heights, and completely distorting the German blue-chip index DAX. Today, Porsche eased the pressure on the short-sellers by releasing 5% of VW's shares. Coincidentally, this also probably bagged them enough billions (never mind street cred) to finance their whole takeover operation. Suddenly, even hedge fund managers are clamouring for more disclosure and regulation in the markets. They aren't meeting much sympathy.

So How Evil Were They?

beaucoupkevin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:29:42 -0800

"Third Reich to Fortune 500: Five Popular Brands the Nazis Gave Us." There are pictures and videos of kittens to soften the blow.

Beep-Beep-mm, Beep-Beep, Yeah!

fandango_matt — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:55:38 -0800

West Coast Classic Restoration specializes in restoring vintage Volkswagens and Porsches, and they have lots of photos of their restoration process.

But there are such sweet ass cars out there!

tgrundke — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:48:00 -0800

Audi released its new super-sportscar, the R8, at the Paris Autoshow today. With cars like the R8 and the Bugatti Veyron at the top end and the Toyota, Volkswagen or Lexus, there's lots of neat stuff going on in the automotive world...just not from GM, Ford or Chrysler. Maybe it's just me, but pumping out crap like this may be part of the reason. Just guessing.

Patrick Dawes and Eugene Bazodis

IndigoJones — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 12:56:52 -0800

Patrick Dawes and Eugene Bazodis aka Patrick and Eugene. Mr Dawes is the sometime percussionist for Groove Armada, but the pair may be most familiar to Americans through that catchy little number heard on the Volkswagen rabbit commercial entitled The Birds and The Bees. (They apparantly did this earlier as an instrumental to push Gordon's Gin). They do have albums, most notably Summerisle , a mixture of jazz, ska, world, unlikely covers, and what have you. Possibly a little twee for many, but not without merit. A cartoon video of the great hit found here. So now you know.

hübsche Fabrik

furtive — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 07:55:58 -0800

From the outside it's hard to guess this is a car factory. But then again, even from the inside the parquet floors and lack of shelves may have thrown you off. Welcome to VW's Incredible Glass Factory.

What Would Jesus Drive?

fenriq — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:03:12 -0800

Buy the (new) Pope's (old) Mobile
I used Babelfish to translate it (Google's translation apparently doesn't work on eBay).
Only 1.7 million pageviews so far.

The Jihadmobile, Small but Tough

digaman — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 17:23:14 -0800

Is this any way to sell Volkswagens? [note: QT link] This "viral ad" for the VW Polo has been making the rounds, leaving a trail of exasperated disgust, outrage, and guilty snickering in its wake. VW's ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, however, claims that it's bogus. (I asked them). Paging Snopes.

PWA_BadBoy — Sun, 09 Jun 2002 23:50:31 -0800

Best. Transformers. Video. Ever. CGI render of a new VW Beetle transforming into a transformer with live background [1.5 meg mpg video]. Makes me wonder if a live-action Transformers TV show would work, with real actors and CGI rendered robots. I'd certainly watch it.

Dav0xor — Sat, 10 Nov 2001 23:43:04 -0800

The Craziest VW I've ever seen Volkswagen's new W12 Coupe.. Woah...

mathowie — Tue, 29 Feb 2000 00:17:21 -0800

The VW vs. Virtual Works case is a lot like the eToys vs. ETOY battle. The vw.net site is owned by a small ISP that has been using it for the last few years, but VW is saying that their brand is diluted and their trademarks infringed when another company uses the initials "vw". Like the eToys case, it looks like Volkswagon has convinced a court of this and will be taking the domain soon. If you remember the different top level domains, .org is for non-profits and organizations, .com is for commercial ventures and corporations, and .net is for network companies and network providers. One would think an ISP qualifies for a .net, and that VW should be perfectly happy with their .com domain, or am I missing something here?