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Peeking Under the Hood of Volkswagen: A Reading List
Slate podcast host Seth Stevenson takes us on a journey through the car manufacturer’s highs and lows, from lovable ads to emissions scandals.
Pocket Collections- Seth Stevenson
Read when you’ve got time to spare.
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How much do we really know about Volkswagen? Thanks to some highly visible moments in pop culture—and hyper-recognizable car design—it’s easy to feel like we know the brand pretty well. But the car manufacturer has taken countless odd twists and turns over its century-long life. And I got to do quite a deep dive on how far they’ve traveled for the podcast I host, Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism.
In each episode of the show, we dive into the past, present, and future of fascinating companies, walking you through the company’s origin story, important turning points, and the business challenges it’s facing right now. Many of the brands we cover are ones you’ve heard of, but you might not be aware of the sagas behind these household name. Like, well, Volkswagen. Here, I’m sharing some of the inspiration and key resources we leaned on for this episode. Starting with a regrettable April Fools joke...
Image by Mario Tama / Staff / Getty Images
beetlejuice150 on YouTube [WATCH]
SS: “Lots of terrific, vintage Volkswagen television ads can be found on YouTube. This compendium was useful as we looked for clips to use in our episode. Among my favorites: A very young Dustin Hoffman and very tall Wilt Chamberlain turning up as endorsers in a pair of cheeky 1960s VW spots.”
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Seth Stevenson
Seth Stevenson has been a Slate contributor since 1997 and is host of the Slate podcast Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism. He is also the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World. Stevenson graduated from Brown University, was a Knight-Bagehot fellow at the Columbia Journalism School, and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.