spark360 Behind The Scenes: Lewisville Volkswagen

It had driven across the United States twice, toured all over the south of England (along with the low countries of Europe), and then handed over to two teenage sons who used it to drive to school and cruise the main drags of San Angelo, Texas. It had well over 100,000 miles, a nasty purplish bruise on its left front fender and a sick-sounding honk that reminded one of the Road Runner with a bad head cold.

“It” was a 1964 Volkswagen Beetle my Dad bought right before he (and the rest of my family) were sent to England courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. It was handed down to my older brother as his first car after he got his driver’s license, and that scene was repeated after I successfully completed driver’s ed classes at Central High School in San Angelo seven years later, and I was the proud driver of an extremely used Volkswagen. I steered my way through some great sophomore and junior-year memories in that Bug, so my nostalgia gene was naturally triggered as the spark360 team prepared its profile on Lewisville Volkswagen and its “Peace. Love. Happiness. Volkswagen.” business model.

The Dallas Volkswagen dealer plays up the 1960s pop cultural vibes in that model, which would have been right around the time my brother was using the Bug for his nefarious high school/college purposes in the late 60s and early 70s. By the time I got my hands on it, the radio in its utilitarian dashboard would be searching for any radio station that was playing Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Aerosmith and Rush – not exactly San Francisco folk-rock, to be sure. But when Lewisville VW general manager Alan Brown talks about families having a Volkswagen connection somewhere in their lineages – and all the memories that come along with that – I knew exactly what he was talking about.

That Bug-driven jaunt down memory lane was aided by the classic VW print ads sitting in frames on the walls of the Lewisville VW showroom; suffice to say that I’m old enough to remember seeing some of the original versions in Look, Life and Time magazines from back-in-the-day. If I were advising Brown and the management team at Lewisville VW, I’d recommend digging up clips from movies featuring Beetles, including (obviously) “The Love Bug,” Woody Allen’s sci-fi comedy “Sleeper” (famous for its scene where a 200-year-old Beetle starts up on the first try) and “What’s Up Doc?” and playing them on the showroom’s flat-screen TV’s.

In my spark360 interview with Brown, I ask him if the VW’s iconic brand and those pop culture memories still can have an impact in the 21st century and a new generation of car buyers. I should have known better. My own memories are proof that combining nostalgia and marketing remains a powerful combination, especially if the car being marketed is one that has a special place along the road to automotive history.

- Renay San Miguel