Buenos Dias! Today is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated both in Mexico and the U.S.. The day honors the battle of Puebla, a conflict fought on this day in 1862 when 4,500 Mexican troops defeated 18,000 French soldiers. Puebla is not just the site of this historic battle, it is also today Mexico’s second most populous city, and the location of the largest Volkswagen plant outside of Germany. It’s those Mexican VWs that we want to discuss today, May the 5th. Volkswagen opened the Puebla plant in 1964 and it currently employs nearly 15,000 workers. There they build the Jetta, the New Beetle, and soon the next generation Golf for both the Latin- and North-American markets. Wait, you might ask, the Beetle? But isn’t that in homage to the most German car of them all, the one that was created by Hitler? Shouldn’t that be built in Germany? Well, yeah and no. You see the Germans don’t hold the Beetle in such warm regard as do the Americans, because of, well, you know the whole Hitler thing. Here in Apple Pie land, we love em, and so VW builds them for us down in Puebla, although I’d guess the plant’s taking a day off today. The question for today is – margaritas – salt or no salt? No, that’s not it. The question is, do you consider VWs built in Puebla to be German cars? Do you think that the Jetta coming off the lines down south are German, or at least German-engineered? You should know that the present Jetta was designed FOR the U.S. market, so I don’t know how much German is in its engineering. Pretty much the same thing for the Beetle. What do you think, are these Puebla-produced VWs German, or just German in name only? Image source: Motor Trend
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