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You remember Volkswagen, right?

The car company with the grand ambitions and creative advertising of a decade ago hasn't made a profit in North American since 2002 — reported losses have totalled more than €2.5-billion ($3.6-billion)over the past five years — and sales have dropped by about half since the Beetle-fuelled peak of about 575,000 in 1970.

That was back when VW actually built cars in the United States (though never Canada) and long before SUV/sports car maker Porsche AG took over.

Yes, Porsche is Volkswagen's largest shareholder with a stake of about 31 per cent. And Porsche has said it has options to raise its Volkswagen stake significantly, though it's not saying by how much. But we do know that Porsche has spent about €5.8-billion to accumulate its VW shares.

How great an impact the new owners are having on VW is a matter of pure speculation.

VW officials will say this, however: They are back with new growth goals of a combined one million units for the VW and Audi brands in North America. For VW, the future will ride on four core models — two basic car and two SUV lines.

Beyond that, VW has new designs on how it will do business in Canada and that plan seems to fit with VW's even larger goal of overtaking Toyota as the world's largest auto maker.

Officials of VW's North American operations have said the Volkswagen group is working on a 10-year strategic plan that aims to narrow the productivity and profitability gap with Toyota.

No small feat, that. Toyota is by far the most profitable auto maker in the world and last year Toyota says it sold about 9.37 million vehicles. General Motors came second with about 8.89 million. VW, the world's fourth-largest auto maker, has a goal to boost sales to 10 million by 2018 from current levels of about six million in 2007.

In Canada, VW sold 39,909 vehicles last year, for an increase of 5.1 per cent. Audi, VW's luxury brand, chipped in another 6,995 in Canada.

Ah, Canada. Last year Audi was hurt mightily by the strength of the Canadian dollar compared with its U.S. counterpart. Sales for the year slipped 14.9 per cent. In response, Audi Canada announced aggressive price cuts and factory incentives, and not surprisingly sales in January responded with a 25.1-per-cent jump.

The VW brand, meanwhile, was helped in Canada by the introduction of the City line of Golfs and Jettas, which started at less than $15,000 on launch day last fall. These cars, of course, are previous-generation technology built and sold in Brazil (Golf) and Mexico (Jetta) as part of those countries' current VW lineup. VW's plan in Canada apparently includes giving Canadians the best of both the developing and developed world.

And there's more.

After nearly 15 years of essentially running Canada as something of a 51st state out of VW's U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., on Jan. 1 Canada was given a greater degree of independence with the creation of Volkswagen Group Canada.

John White, who had been vice-president of the VW brand in Canada, was named president and managing director of Canadian operations.

"This step is being taken to reflect an even more focused approach to the Canadian automotive market. It will bring independent operations, ready for market expansions and ensure that the product and strategic needs of the Canadian market are fully represented at a consistently high level," says North America chief executive officer and president Stefen Jacoby.

Jacoby is vague on whether more Brazilian and Mexican products are on the way to Canada. What is known is that VW CEO Martin Winterkorn is establishing global sales goals and financial targets with Toyota in mind. "In the last five, six years, Toyota has pulled ahead of us, and what we plan to do is to reduce the lead that they've got," he told a news conference last year.

Observers say VW is copying what Winterkorn did when he was CEO of VW's Audi premium brand. While there, he boosted productivity and initiated Route 15, a blueprint for growth based on an array of new models.

Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche CEO, is known as a supporter of Winterkorn and has also said that Toyota is the benchmark. Wiedeking is expected to play a role of growing importance in VW's future as the head of VW's controlling shareholder.

Late last month, Wiedeking told Porsche's annual meeting that Porsche could extend its influence and is seriously considering an increased ownership stake at Volkswagen. He also said he does not intend to take the helm at VW, Europe's biggest auto maker by sales.

Regardless of Porsche's plans, a large part of VW's future involves putting most VW vehicles on four new architectures. Doing so will help VW build cars faster, cut development times by up to a year and reduce costs, say VW officials.

Ulrich Hackenberg, VW brand board member for development, told trade journal Automotive News late last year that the most-used architecture — and the one most applicable to Canada — will be VW's new transverse-engine architecture, called MQB.

It is the foundation for small-through-medium models. This architecture could be the basis for replacements of at least 20 small-through-medium models — from Jettas to the Eos convertible, from Passats to Audi's A3 and TT.

Another architecture potentially of importance to Canadians is the MHB, which will underpin VW's new rear-engine mini-car range. The plan there is reflected in VW's Up concept vehicles.

And then there is a modular architecture for mid-engine sports cars such as the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo, perhaps including a more-affordable Bugatti.

The final architecture, MLB, is the basis for new front- and all-wheel-drive vehicles such as the Audi A4 and A5/S5.

On the surface, the VW plan looks straightforward enough, though execution will be far from simple.

VW is counting on new models to increase demand in developing countries where competition is getting ever more fierce among both established auto makers and emerging new ones.

VW is also battling weak demand in Europe, labour issues at its German facilities and unfavorable exchange rates — particularly the strength of the euro versus the U.S. greenback.

To meet targets, analysts say VW needs to improve its designs and speed its time to market with new models, improve quality, extend parts sharing among models while also extending the life cycle of components — and do all of this without diluting profits with plans to build more small cars. That's a tall order.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., VW is moving its headquarters from Auburn Hills to Virginia later this year, in the process reducing a substantial number of staff.

Jacoby is on record saying VW is considering the possibility of building a plant in the U.S. Volkswagen closed its factory in Pennsylvania in 1988 after 10 years.

Jacoby, ironically, was deeply involved in shuttering that factory when he was a young executive with the company. For now, VW's only plant in North America is in Puebla, Mexico, where Jettas and New Beetles are built for the world.

It could be, however, that Jacoby may end up being responsible for a new U.S. factory designed to create enough VW capacity to support the auto maker's new North American battle plan. (Canada is not in the running for a new VW plant.)

As always in the car business, VW's success will hinge on new models coming to market at the right price to spur profitable demand. VW executives say, in fact, they will continue to price vehicles more aggressively while at the same time curbing costly frills many North American buyers don't want.

Meanwhile, Canada, largely a compact and subcompact car market, is a very different place than the U.S., therefore with the new management structure, buyers can rightfully expect more models tailored to Canadian tastes.

VW plans to add 12 models to its global lineup by 2010 and it's quite conceivable that one or two of them might be better suited to Canadian tastes than anything VW has sold here since the original Beetle.

So for now it's not a question of do you remember VW, but rather be sure to remember VW's plans for the future.