Good commercials entertain while promoting any given product. The exceptional ones can be used to discuss more than one subject. Just check this one aired in 2010 in the Netherlands: it shows an old lady selling her Volkswagen Golf. While the father and the son think they found a precious mechanical jewel, she remembers how much she hooned the poor little thing she is now trying to sell.
It is hilarious to see the “experienced” dad helping his son buy the Volkswagen hatchback in apparently mint condition. He often makes gestures that suggest such a lovely granny probably drove her car very little. In other words, it must be like new, which is a common misconception when anyone is looking for a used car.
People often believe that buying a car from a taxi cab driver with high mileage is a worse option than getting it from an old lady. There is even an expression for that, possibly in all countries and all languages: old lady’s car, meaning it was barely used.
What these folks probably do not know is that combustion-engined vehicles are healthier if they are driven for longer distances than if you only turn on the engine for short trips every once in a while. That is considered severe use because the oil does not heat up enough to lubricate all components, and it tends to get contaminated with the fuel that eventually mixes with it when hitting the cold cylinder walls. EVs work differently: the more you drive them, the more the battery pack will wear.
Apart from that, taxi drivers treat vehicles better than regular car owners because they are expensive working tools – which they cannot easily replace if the machines break down for any reason.
The original commercial had Dutch subtitles at the end, stating: “Not every old lady is equally reliable. Every Golf is luckily so.” It also shows her checking a brand-new (at the time) fifth-generation Golf and getting excited to be invited to have a test drive. Poor salesman! The idea was to show how much abuse a Golf could take while still looking in perfect shape. In other words, how reliable the Volkswagen hatchback was.
A more recent version of the commercial for the Romanian market changed that a bit. Instead of the “te koop” (for sale) banner glued to the right rear window, we can read “de vânzare.” We have the same characters, the same car, a shorter commercial, and this message at the end about “Das WeltAuto,” Volkswagen’s used car program: “Quality used vehicles. Guaranteed.”
This single message already leaves it in the air how much trouble the boy who bought the used Golf from the hoonigan grandmother will endure. To avoid that, Volkswagen recommends you get legal reassurance instead of your hunch that this nice old lady will sell you something you can truly trust. More than a funny commercial, that’s a life hack.
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