A few days ago we had iftar with the awesome Volkswagen team from Al Nabooda Automobiles at the Royal Mirage and in between bonding with little diva, a group of us caught up and talked about cars and our experiences with Volkswagen models.

You may recall I went through a Volkswagen craze last year and tried a few models, which I absolutely loved. My first car was a funky looking VW Polo and I have warm memories of zipping around Dubai in that years ago. One great news from Volkswagen in Dubai and the Northern Emirates is that they have new growth record of vehicles sold during the first two quarters of 2013, representing a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent.

The success of the largest Volkswagen dealer in the Middle East was strongly supported by the increase in demand for the Passat model between January and June 2013. I was mentioning to VW team how popular the Passat was amongst some of my high profile car enthusiast friends.

The results reinforce the Volkswagen strategy supporting the Passat, which indicates the need and preference of customers in Dubai for a sedan vehicle with high standards of safety and design at a competitive price.

The Jetta also proved to be a strong performer in the first half of the year, resulting in 14 per cent rise in sales…. I have not tested the Jetta yet but after seeing its popularity, it has gone on my list of cars to have a fling with.

Thierry Seys, Volkswagen General Manager at Al Nabooda Automobiles is one of the most down to earth leaders I know and he naturally credits the success to his sales team who he says works exceptionally hard to deliver an outstanding service to loyal customers. He reckons that a 34 per cent increase on deliveries to customers is a real testament to their hard work and passion.

Well done Volkswagen!