James Fuller

James R. Fuller was an American automobile executive who worked for various foreign and domestic car companies before joining Volkswagen.

Fuller had worked for the Ford Motor Company, Renault, and American Motors before joining Volkswagen of America. He ran the Porsche-Audi division, and he was appointed to run the VW brand in 1982. Fuller was credited with helping to restore Volkswagen's image as an inexpensive European car with the uncompromising performance and handling typical of German car makes. At the time Fuller became the leader of the Volkswagen sales division, the Volkswagen Rabbit had been built in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania for four years, and attempts to make it drive and handle more like an American car had compromised VW's reputation.

Soon after taking over VW, Fuller was able to get the GTI version of the Rabbit (Golf in Europe) to be built at the Pennsylvania plant, after the Golf GTI had been on sale in Europe for six years. Automobile magazines and Volkswagen enthusiasts in the United States welcomed the addition of a GTI model to the Rabbit lineup, and Volkswagen quickly followed with a high-performance version of the Jetta notchback, the GLI. Fuller explained that he wanted Volkswagen to go farther with performance by offering good passing speed and safety-related factors like braking.

The Volkswagen brand's Germanness was re-emphasized by Fuller in marketing as well. When Dr. Carl Hahn insisted that the second-generation Golf bear that name in the United States and Canada instead of the Rabbit name, Fuller strongly agreed. He believed that "Golf" (short for "Golf-Strom," German for "Gulf Stream") was a more appropriate name for a German brand, even in North America. By 1987, Volkswagen was using as its U.S. slogan the term "German engineering. The Volkswagen way."

Fuller could not reverse VW's slide in the U.S., despite a brief sales surge in 1985 and 1986, but he was able to keep many dealers from deserting VW at a critical time for the company's American operations. In July 1988, however, the Pennsylvania plant - a factory Fuller himself believed was a questionable idea - closed due to declining Golf sales. Five months later, Fuller and VW marketing director Lou Marengo, were flying home from a meeting with Volkswagen executives in Germany on Pan Am Flight 103 when a bomb planted on the plane by Libyan terrorists exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on board.

The deaths of Fuller and Marengo were a major blow to Volkswagen of America, but Fuller had given the company a sense of focus that would allow it to recover in the 1990s.