A couple of months ago when I was in Buffalo about ready to leave, I saw the most amazing display of customer evangelism. It was one of the more interesting things I have seen in quite a while. I don’t think I’ve seen anything so positive about a product in quite some time.

I pulled into a small gas station that was far away from any commercial civilization and began to fuel up my vehicle. Moments after I arrived at the pump, a shiny brand new Beetle pulls up at the pump behind me. Out of the car steps this gal who was probably around a hundred years old. She was defiantly a ‘go-getter-grandma’ if I’ve ever seen one. She wore a bright red dress with bright red lipstick, and next to the shiny bright red Volkswagen, it looked like she color coordinated the whole thing to match perfectly.

Across from her there was this guy who just finished filling up his tank and was on his way inside to pay. He stopped when he saw her car and struck up a conversation about the woman’s car.

He talked about how he used to have a bug back in the day with the old model, and they just went off from there. They talked about all these little facts that only VW beetle owners fanatics would know about. They talked about the differences, the history, and the general life of a VW owner. Did you know that the old model of beetles ran the windshield washer fluid powered from the air in the spare tire? Better hope you don’t get a flat after driving through a swarm of bugs!

The amount of information and love these two had for the product and brand was absolutely incredible. She simply adored the car, and it really showed. I wouldn’t picture these two talking to each other in a million years without being related, but they were brought together by a silly car.

That gave me quite a bit to think about over the next two and a half days of driving. Volkswagen created an environment, possibly unintentionally, that gave their customers a chance to do more than simply drive around.

Any company that can do more than just a customer appreciation for their product, but something to actually get excited means the company must be doing something right! This was certainly an example of the type of product evangelism that Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin often applaud, and I certainly do as well.