Volkswagen released sales figures for November 2005 today -- they're down 15.5%. Is this a company that's moving in the right direction?

I've got a soft spot for VW -- after my freshman year of college, I got a summer job selling VWs at a dealership in the San Fernando Valley in LA. I wound up staying there for a full year, and I got to know the product really well, and I fell in love with VW.

In the intervening years (let's say 25 of them or so), VW has reinvented itself several times. This latest incarnation is so far from the company's proletariat roots that I barely recognize it -- oh, wait, I do recognize it: It's audi.

Let's hope that VW manages to reinvent itself once more, before it's too late.