Become An Autopian Member, Maybe Win This Fancy Camp Blanket

Hey y’all! It turns out I won a Volkswagen caption contest at the launch of the 2024 Volkswagen Atlas. The prize? A super fancy camp blanket that’s too nice for me to keep. The good news is, one of the perks of membership (at all levels) is that we’ll randomly send out awesome swag we get from events to members (sign up here!). Also, let’s make this fun.

As detailed in our first ever Junket Report, I hadn’t participated as a journalist in a car launch in like six years and mostly spent my time reacclimatizing myself. When the very nice PR folks announced they’d be having a social media contest I was too preoccupied to enter. Huzzah! Someone else must have entered me, because I won. Here’s the tweet btw:

At the VW Atlas launch and excited to let you know this review will give me a chance to use the term heckblende. pic.twitter.com/R94SZUJXYg

— MattHardigree (@MattHardigree) July 12, 2023

What I’m pretty sure I won is a fancy Rumpl (I think that’s what they said) camp blanket, like this one, but with a cool Volkswagen logo on it. The value is probably over $100 and I generally don’t keep anything I get from automakers worth more than a nominal amount, so I’m going to give it to you (…but I will accept a fancy brand new car with a full tank of gas and a free trip? The first rule of Automotive Journalist Ethics is to not think too much about Automotive Journalist Ethics).

[Editor’s Note: Yeah, Matt, be cool, be cool – JT]

How do you get it? Just be a member and at the end of the day I’ll use a random number generator to randomly select a person based on their internal member # (which is based on when you signed up).

[Editor’s Note: I’m gonna write the random number generator in BASIC on one of my Apple IIs because I trust that pseudo-random number generator more than Google. – JT]

That being said, let’s have a little fun: Come up with the most Volkswagen-sounding name for a new, convertible Volkswagen crossover (a la CrossCabriolet) that will probably never exist. It can be an extremely simple English word (Golf, Rabbit) or a wind (Passat), or a group of people (Touareg). Just make it sound both hilarious and realistic at the same time.

BTW, as mentioned, I’m keeping this post open for non-members so everyone can play. Only a member can win, though (and again, the winner will not be the person with the best response, this is just for funsies). If you want to be up for being randomly chosen, do please sign up and become a member! We are two short of 900 members and Peter made a fun graphic he wants to share on social when we hit that number.