2010 Volkswagen PoloVW officials said last January that they were considering a smaller-than-Rabbit car for U.S. sale, provided they could get around the weakening dollar that's making so many euro-denominated imports so expensive. As VW CEO Martin Winterkorn told trade weekly Automotive News, "The car would have to be built in the U.S. To make the Polo in Europe and bring it to America would not work." More recent reports have suggested Mexico as a possible assembly point.
Even if production would take place south of the border, the basic statement is still true. So is the general rule about smaller cars making smaller profits, one reason Detroit has paid scant attention to them over the last 10 years. But with unstable gas prices and rising buyer demand for thriftier vehicles, every automaker is scrambling to get out higher-mpg models, so it's easy to imagine that a U.S.-market Polo has moved up on VW's priority list.
