Has the California sliding door changed sides?

[Mark Garrett]

On the new updated VW California website, there are several photos showing the sliding door on the UK nearside/leftside, is this marketing gone wrong, or have things changed?

https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/models/california.html

 

[T6 CFO]

Marketing gone wrong as no way will they have changed it.

Mike

 

[MattBW]

As a photographer I know a little about this, its quite common to shoot one set of images in the car industry (and video too) with a reversible number plate and then flip the images depending on which side of the road people drive. I suspect they've done this here and then photoshopped the number plate. It then shows the streering wheel on the UK side, works fine with cars as they have doors both sides as a rule.

Probably a bit risky with a cali though as they will be getting into trade description issues with the door being on the wrong side. All the internal pictures do show it on the normal side. I did hear rumours of a twin slider beach once but I dont think they ever surfaced.

 

[JohnnyP]

On the new updated VW California website, there are several photos showing the sliding door on the UK nearside/leftside, is this marketing gone wrong, or have things changed?

https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/models/california.html

No, its still on the Germans side

 

[Velma's Dad]

Actually you should have been able to tell that from the photo because in the picture the seagulls are flying west to east whereas in the UK they always fly east to west as that's the best attack angle for nicking fish and chips.

Plenty basic error in the brochure though. Some product/comms manager at VW HQ should be given an 'interview without coffee' over that.

 

[Hotel California]

Normal VW marketing in misleading people....

 

[Neil Bennett]

You Just need to look at the interior shots. They're all correct with kitchen to passenger side and sliding door to driver side

 

[Mark Garrett]

Thanks all, phew. Last minute jitters before I get my Ocean soon... (I feel like I may be repeating myself on several threads )

 

[Deskman]

Probably the marketing bureau tried to show the right hand steering wheel, ignoring the wrong door-side.

 

[ejmoore]

Ridiculous - almost all of them are the wrong way round. I think the problem is with graphic designers - the image is just a graphic and if it looks nicer reversed they'll do it. I find this a lot with pictures of buildings too (my job). No, it does make a difference!

 

[Deskman]

Graphic designers don't make this kind of choices.

 

[GrannyJen]

If they can fiddle emissions and lie big time to American regulators then photo-shopping a few pics of a Cali is nowt

 

[oceanblue]

The original image (it's been around for two years) has been flipped and the agency responsible has not bothered to remove the shut lines/handles etc and do their job properly. How do I know... until earlier this year, my design agency produced all VWCV UK brochures. For the past three years, it's something that without fail we would have rectified. We would always flip and retouch images to work correctly both ways. We still work for VWG Ireland, but sadly not the UK as they like to change the brochure agency every three years.

 

[oceanblue]

On the new updated VW California website, there are several photos showing the sliding door on the UK nearside/leftside, is this marketing gone wrong, or have things changed?

https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/models/california.html

Yes, marketing gone wrong!

 

[oceanblue]

Graphic designers don't make this kind of choices.

They do. VWCV UK images are shared and made available to all their design, marketing and web agencies and the designers are free to use as they see fit. It's just a case of bad retouching and lack of care – often down to poor product knowledge!

 

[HugoFar]

As a photographer I know a little about this, its quite common to shoot one set of images in the car industry (and video too) with a reversible number plate and then flip the images depending on which side of the road people drive. I suspect they've done this here and then photoshopped the number plate. It then shows the streering wheel on the UK side, works fine with cars as they have doors both sides as a rule.

Probably a bit risky with a cali though as they will be getting into trade description issues with the door being on the wrong side. All the internal pictures do show it on the normal side. I did hear rumours of a twin slider beach once but I dont think they ever surfaced.

A few years ago the VW Beach spec in South Africa had twin sliding doors. Not sure if it was a real thing or typo but we followed up as thought to import it into NZ. Then we found our MY08 Cali 4 motion and we didn't pursue the SA one.