Retro cars get boring fast, says Volkswagen design boss
While VW’s latest cars play off customers’ nostalgia and love for the brand, the brand has avoided going quite as retro as rival Renault
Retro-inspired cars are everywhere these days with the likes of the Renault 5 and Renault 4, MINI Cooper, Ford Bronco and so many more bringing past icons back onto modern day roads. However, Volkswagen’s design boss is warning that people can get tired of retro cars very fast, and he’s speaking from experience.
Auto Express spoke to Andreas Mindt, head of design for both the Volkswagen brand and now the entire VW Group, ahead of the 2026 Paris Motor Show - the unofficial theme of which is reviving the icons of the past. The Citroen 2CV, Renault Espace, Peugeot 205 T16 and others have all been reimagined for the 21st Century by new cars at the show.
When asked about his thoughts on this latest batch of retro revivals, Mindt said: “I don’t want to repeat a design over and over again, I think there’s a dead end to it.
“We had that with the new Beetle. You do one Beetle, then another and then people get tired. How can you succeed from there? There’s a stop somewhere when you go down this path. We did it already and we found it’s no good.”
By contrast, Volkswagen is now embracing its heritage but in a less obvious way, refocusing on the core values that fans loved about its most treasured models for. “Our three values are: stable, likeable and secret sauce,” Mindt explained. “You can apply this in the past, in the present and in the future as well, as these values are timeless.”
So while we don’t get the impression VW has any intention of making the next Golf look like the Mk1 from the seventies, or resurrecting the Beetle a second time, there are subtle yet important elements for its older cars that are being carried forward.
“When I say ‘stable’ [as one of VW’s core values], it can be like a Beetle in the past, just running, running, running. Mega reliable! That’s a value and I can express this with a design.
“I can add a thick C-pillar, I can do strong surfaces, the stance of the car, wide wheelarches, and all of that is dense, and this is stable. And people like this because it feels safe. Like a safe place where I want to put my kids and stuff in.”
The endlessly passionate design boss continued: “This is somehow retro because the value is coming from the past, you know? This is what people like, this is why we exist and this is more fundamental than the outside shape.”
Ultimately, according to Mindt, there’s a difference between Volkswagen and those brands who are almost pulling cars straight out of the history books: “We do new designs, we go into the future, but the values are from the past.”
A pinch of VW nostalgia
Of course, Volkswagen won’t stop itself from plucking one or two elements from past models to appeal to long-time fans and play to people's nostalgia. The new Volkswagen ID. Cross SUV, for instance, features three slates on its C-pillar as a nod to the old VW Microbus.
The red line around the face of the ID. Polo GTI is another example, according to Mindt. “We brought the whole GTI thing back.” In fact, he says. “GTI is super famous across the world and we forgot about it, but it’s a value. So we brought the value of GTI back. It’s an icon, so let's turn it back into an icon!”
There’s a new version of the classic GTI tartan in the new ID. Polo GTI, which won’t please more traditionalist fans, however, Mindt compares this to what Burberry does with its own signature pattern. “They change the patterns to modernise and we do this similar thing.
“You can say there's a connection to the past, but we always want to modernise. We want to go to the next step, because otherwise, it turns into an old joke.”
Mindt also pointed to the latest MINI Cooper’s new take on the brand’s classic circular dial being a big round screen as a way to keep some connection to the past, but bringing it into the future.
Where does the very retro VW ID. Buzz fit in then?
Admittedly, there is an outlier to Mindt’s stance on purely retro cars and that’s the Volkswagen ID. Buzz - the new-age interpretation of the iconic VW Bus.
Although, we should note that Mindt wasn’t working at VW when that was conceived - he was busy styling Audis and Bentleys at the time - and sales have been rather poor lately. Perhaps the Buzz is already about to go the way of the new Beetle then?
“There’s some reasons for that [slow sales of ID. Buzz]”, Mindt admits to us. Neither he nor VW are giving up on the charming MPV, however. He even hints at potential refinements to come; “we have to work on that and we have to improve, but we can. We have some ideas to go on with certain ideas.”
He added, “when you have a van, it doesn’t have too much character; one white van looks like the other white van. So what do you do to make it interesting? Well the ID. Buzz is one of the interesting ones and when I do a van, I want to make an interesting one. This I can promise you in the future: it will be interesting.”
Lots of secret sauce will be required, says Mindt, but we’re confident that there’s plenty to go around at the newly re-energised Volkswagen that appears to have found its charm again.
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