VDub

VDub was a parody tagline, used in a short series of commercials for German car manufacturer Volkswagen. As part of a 2006 advertising campaign for Volkswagen, Crispin Porter and Bogusky created a series of three television commercials (Catapult, Wrecking Ball, Crate) starring Swedish actor Peter Stormare as an effete German engineer named Wolfgang. [1] The ads were created as a parody of MTV's Pimp My Ride starring rapper Xzibit. These ads which were directed by Jonas Åkerlund were created by advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky which is based in Miami, Florida.

The commercials began airing in late February 2006. Prior to the full launch of the TV campaign, the three 30-second spots became something of an internet phenomenon when popular automotive news website Leftlane News uploaded the ads to video distribution service YouTube. As of early March 2006, the ads had received over two million views on YouTube. By August, that number was over four million.

Premise

Throughout the commercials, Wolfgang appears with his blonde assistant, a guest, and the guest's pimped-out vehicle. After insulting the automobile, he "un-pimps ze auto" by destroying it and replacing it with a 2006 Volkswagen GTI, to the surprise of his guest. The destruction takes various forms, including: hit by a wrecking ball (an EG-series Honda Civic), crushed by a falling container (a Ford Focus ZX3), and thrown by a trebuchet-like device (a 2nd-Gen Mitsubishi Eclipse).

At the end of the advertisements, Wolfgang flashes a hand sign to create the letters V and W in the same orientation as found in the Volkswagen logo. The hand sign is an imitation of the gang signs popularized by hip-hop culture.

Trivia

• While Wolfgang states the abbreviation of Volkswagen as "Vee-Dub," the proper way to pronounce the letters VW in German is "Fow-Veh."

• In addition, Wolfgang pronounces Volkswagen as "Volks-wagen" (with the "w" pronounced as, obviously, "w"), while, with a German accent, it would instead have been pronounced "folks-vagen."

• The Focus is referred to as a "98 Whatchamacallit" though the Focus was not available in the US until 2000. The car is obviously a US-Spec Focus though as the taillights have clear reverse lenses instead of the yellow turn lenses found in European versions.

Miss Helga is German model: Zonja Wöstendiek Very nice woman.

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