- Volkswagen Summer Drives playlist compiled in online poll
- Perfect soundtrack for festival and bank holiday road trips
- In-car features make sure people won’t miss a beat
Milton Keynes – Millions of motorists are about to hit the open road as they head to music festivals and make the most of the August Bank Holiday – so Volkswagen has created the perfect playlist for summer drives.
Whether singing along to The Beatles in a Beetle or blasting N-Dubz in a V-Dub, the best road trips are accompanied by the perfect soundtrack. Volkswagen fans across the UK were asked online to suggest songs that make them wind down the windows and turn up the volume. From festival anthems to classic hits and nightclub bangers, the result is almost three hours of Volkswagen-inspired tunes.
The playlist is available on Spotify – just search for Volkswagen Summer Drives. Highlights include California Soul, VW Van and Young At Heart, which featured in a memorable Volkswagen TV advert in the early 1990s. Other favourites include Ride Like The Wind, In The Summertime and Ventura Highway; there’s even space for more niche tastes, with Autobahn by Kraftwerk.
The Summer Drives playlist is part of the new Volkswagen UK account on Spotify, which also lists hot hits and trending tunes from Volkswagen Retailer staff across the UK. Search for Volkswagen Retailer Top Hits to listen to their favourite tracks.
Whatever the preferred tunes or genres, Volkswagen’s latest cars make sure passengers can hear every beat, high note and harmony. Smartphones can be paired wirelessly with infotainment screens in seconds using Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and models fitted with Harman Kardon speakers deliver razor-sharp acoustics.
From Beach Boys nostalgia to electropop Dragons
Volkswagen fans clearly have wide-ranging tastes in music. The Summer Playlist spans more than five decades of hits, from timeless classics to modern anthems. The oldest song is from 1964 (I Get Around by The Beach Boys) while the youngest was released in 2017 (Thunder by Imagine Dragons).
American rock seems to be the pick of the genres, followed by pop with a smattering of country, blues and electronic music. Volkswagen drivers also seem to like songs that are energetic and nostalgic; 12 songs on the list match both of these moods, the rest being uplifting, melancholic and dreamy (playlist facts compiled with the help of AI).
About the Volkswagen brand:
A total of 166,304 new Volkswagen passenger vehicles were registered in the UK in 2024, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). This equated to a market share of 8.52 per cent, matching the brand’s market share in 2023, and made Volkswagen the UK’s best-selling new-car brand for the fourth year running.
The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand has a global presence, producing vehicles at 29 locations in 12 countries, and employs 170,000 people. In 2024, Volkswagen delivered around 4.80 million vehicles worldwide. These included bestsellers such as the Polo, T-Roc, T-Cross, Golf, Tiguan and Passat, as well as the successful all-electric ID. models. Volkswagen handed over about 383,000 all-electric vehicles to customers worldwide in 2024 and, with its ACCELERATE strategy, is consistently advancing its ambition to become the most desirable brand for sustainable mobility.
