When Bernd Pischetsrieder was ousted and Martin Winterkorn was promoted from Audi to head the Volkswagen Group and its eponymous brand, there was a re-think of the cars planned for VW’s future. Walter da Silva came from Audi to take overall charge of the Group’s design departments and Klaus Bischoff was appointed head of the VW studio, replacing Murat Gunak.

The Scirocco was sent back to the drawing board or, rather, the computer screen, for restyling and the replacements for the Golf and Polo were scrapped. Da Silva and Bischoff developed a new Golf design in less than 18 months.

Bishoff says that the discarded design was ‘a caricature of a Golf’, following industry trends (like the deep, under-and-over front grille) rather than concentrating on the model’s long-established styling elements.

Da Silva said that he wanted to return to a distinct identity for Volkswagen: ‘It needed to be simple so that people could understand the brand.’ He then confused the issue by saying: ‘It isn’t simple to do something simple.’

OK, we know what he is getting at. In profile and configuration the new car had to be recognizably a Golf but with more subtle contours and strengthening the rear ‘shoulders’ to give the car a better stance. Da Silva describes the thin, horizontal grille connecting the headlights as ‘the forerunner of VW’s future’. A similar design for the Scirocco was Da Silva’s first contribution to Winterkorn’s ‘return to basics’.

The GTI, which will appear next summer, accentuates the new Golf’s features with a more aggressive front end and larger air intakes under the bumper.

All versions have a better interior than the Golf V. It is well known that the old car went over-budget, mainly because of the cost of the independent rear suspension it adopted to match the Ford Focus, and that some compensatory paring took place inside in the car. The new one continues with the independent rear (the cost is now amortized across most of the VW range) but the quality has been put back into the cabin. It is now appropriate for the ‘premium volume brand ‘ – which is how Volkswagen describes itself.

And Volkswagen is faring well in the current straitened circumstances. The Group increased its worldwide sales by 7.2% from January to June this year and in doing so overtook Ford, to take third position in global sales league, behind Toyota and General Motors. Chief executive Martin Winterkorn is confident that Volkswagen will meet its sales and financial targets for 2008 despite difficult market conditions in Europe and the USA.

The Volkswagen Group – comprising VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti - sold 6.2 million vehicles in 2007 and Winterkorn has declared that he is aiming for 8 million a year by 2010 and to pass Toyota (9.3 million last year) by 2018 to become the world’s number 1 car maker.

Most of the growth will come from the expanding markets of China, India and Russia but the Volkswagen brand in particular has potential for a big improvement in the USA. Winterkorn believes that downsizing in the US market gives Volkswagen an opportunity and wants to increase American sales to 1 million cars a year over the next decade. As a step in this direction it is to open a factory in Tennessee to build special low-priced models for the US market – initially, 150,000 a year.

Claiming Volkswagen to be the most international of car makers, Winterkorn said: ‘The days of the “World Car” are definitely gone. Our customers in Europe, the US, China, expect different products and we will tailor our portfolio to meet these requirements.’ That’s a diametrically opposite view to Ford’s Alan Mulally, who plans to use Ford’s European designs worldwide.

Across the Group, Winterkorn promises 20 additional new models by 2010. Virtually the whole range is being renewed. By 2011, 95 per cent of Volkswagen Group cars will be built using three new ‘architectures’.

The first, code-named MLB, has already appeared with the Audi A5 and the new A4. This longitudinal engine platform is designed to extend right up to the next generation Audi A8 and Q7 and even to Bentley.

MQB is a similarly versatile platform for smaller transverse-engined cars from the VW Polo through to the next (Mark VII) Golf and right up to the Skoda Superb. And MSF is a family of A-segment minicars, previewed by the Up! concepts and to be the super-economical entry-level models for Volkswagen, SEAT and Skoda.

As presented, the MSF cars were rear-engined, with the motor tucked away under the rear seats, but for production that would mean a lot of unique drive-line components and so the project is being re-thought with conventional front-wheel drive. That will mean some delay in introduction but Volkswagen insiders say the first of these cars, expected to be called VW Lupo, should still be ready before the end of 2010.

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