1997. That’s the year I started VWvortex. I owned a Mk3 Jetta GLX at the time and still miss that VR6 powered car to this day. There was no big plan with this site, I just wanted to try and build a website for people that like VWs and provide the latest news and photos. We added our discussion forum software in 1998 and from there this whole thing just took off. 17+ years later we have over 1 million people visiting this site every month and our forums are one of the largest automotive forums on the Internet.
After all these years, it was time to give some serious thought to the future. I have a family now, and kids… and they just keep getting older every day. The numerous events in their lives that I’ve missed when traveling somewhere or trying to keep this business going have begun to catch up with me.
Over the past few years, George and I started having some discussions about the sites and the long-term future. We have watched numerous other automotive websites get bought up by different companies over the years. We’ve also watched carefully what happens to those websites. There are only a handful of companies that we would feel comfortable leaving the reins to our sites to. Vertical Scope, the owners of Auto Guide and numerous other websites, is one of the few that will purchase a website, cultivate it, give it stability and let the original ecosystem and community continue to flourish and live with minimal change.
About 8 months ago we started discussions with Vertical Scope over this site and its future. After a LOT of soul searching, debate, rollercoasters of emotion and more, we made the difficult decision to sell VWvortex – over a month ago actually.
What has changed in that time? Not much. New servers, new hosting, better infrastructure and support and a few other things on the back end, but otherwise to you our readers nothing. And that’s the point. George and I are still around and you’ll find the same moderators and forum admins as well. We’re going to continue to keep offering the latest VW news and features you are used to and also continue to make performance improvements and upgrades to the forums.
Long term for George and I means reducing our pace a bit and spending a little more time with family and friends. Will Barber has been doing a knockout job keeping the blog and news flowing over the last year and he will continue to keep doing that. George and I will still be around poking into the forums, contributing stories, driving the latest model and more. A line in a famous movie once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” We just plan to stop and look around a little bit more.
The years here have literally flown by. The Golf IV had just launched in Europe when I launched this site and I still can’t believe three more generations have gone by since then. The readers we’ve met, the friendships we’ve made, the crazy stories we’ve both heard and been a part of – it has been an amazing ride. We are truly fortunate to be able to call this place home for the last 15+ years. What a long strange trip it has been.
Cheers!
-jamie
We’ve set up a discussion forum topic HERE if you want to say something nice or reminisce about old times. We love hearing your stories about how this site has affected your lives.
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