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WHAT VAN? AWARDS – WINNER'S PROFILE: Leading from the front
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 | Author: James Dallas
Volkswagen has a strong line-up of light commercial vehicles in place and is planning to build momentum following an award-winning year.
It’s fair to say that the 2018 What Van? Awards proved to be a fruitful event for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
The brand was Highly Commended in the safety category, as it was in light vans for the Caddy and pick-ups for the Amarok, retained the best website award it captured in 2017,
and its new Crafter not only took the Large Van of the Year Award but also made off with the overall Light Commercial Vehicle of the Year prize.
VW UK boss Carl Zu Dohna says: “We were really proud to win the award for the Crafter. We came down [to the Awards luncheon] with the whole team and it was good to see customers there.
Describing What Van? as “top of the pecking order” Zu Dohna says the external validation of winning the awards means he can say to customers: “Don’t believe me, believe What Van?”
He professes to have been almost as pleased to see the brand recognised for its work on safety as he was to see the Crafter land the top product prize.
Last year Volkswagen became the first manufacturer to fit its vans with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) as standard, a move that led road safety research company Thatcham Research to describe the brand as a “trailblazer” for fitting the “proven lifesaving technology”.
Zu Dohna asserts that the Crafter now has all the credentials to match the success of its stablemates the Caddy light van and Transporter medium van, which have traditionally been bigger sellers. With an extended line-up including front-, rear- and all-wheel-drive derivatives and a wide range of conversions enabled by single- and double- cab chassis cabs, he says: “We can tackle the whole market now.”
Zu Dohna was also delighted that the brand held onto the What Van? website award, explaining: “Our customers are very digital – all their research is done online.”
View The WhatVan Digital Edition
