VDub

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This article is about the 2006 Volkswagen GTI advertisement. For the video editing software, see VirtualDub.

As part of a 2006 advertising campaign, Volkswagen created a series of television commercials 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 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.

Wolfgang gets ready to fling a car with a trebuchet-like device.

Wolfgang's blonde assistant, Miss Helga, often helps him by insulting the guest's vehicle

1 Premise
2 Taglines
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] 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 the 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, crushed by a falling container, and thrown by a trebuchet-like device.

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.

[edit] Taglines

VDub's commercials often contain a catchy tagline, including:

"You got an F!"
"It'z time to unpimp ze auto!"
"Ve just dropped it like it'z hot!"
"Representing Deutschland"
"It's definitely sucking"
"Holdin' it down on ze engineering tip y'all... ja"
"German Engineering in da house... ja"
"Oh, shnap!"

[edit] 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."