For the Volkswagen dealership network, their staff trained over many years to promote and service rear-engined air-cooled cars, the appearance at relatively short notice of the water-cooled front-engined K70 presented a challenge.
 Although the car was priced below the Audi 100, there was an unavoidable overlap in the market place with the Volkswagen 411.
Despite the different badging, some potential buyers may have tarred the K70 with the same brush as its unreliable NSU Ro 80 sister car, leading to poor sales.
The car also gained a reputation for rampant body corrosion from which it never recovered.

The K70 was replaced in 1973 by the Audi-based Volkswagen Passat, although it continued in production until February 1975, by which time Volkswagen had produced 210,082 K70s.
 An alternative source gives the production total for the K70 as 211,127.
   Of these, only 800 were thought to have been produced in right-hand drive for the British market.
  The K70 together with the VW 411/412 ended up being the only cars ever to be produced at Salzgitter, the plant being turned over for engine and transmission manufacture for the entire Volkswagen Group, which continues to the present day.
For the Volkswagen dealership network, their staff trained over many years to promote and service rear-engined air-cooled cars, the appearance at relatively short notice of the water-cooled front-engined K70 presented a challenge.  Although the car was priced below the Audi 100, there was an unavoidable overlap in the market place with the Volkswagen 411. Despite the different badging, some potential buyers may have tarred the K70 with the same brush as its unreliable NSU Ro 80 sister car, leading to poor sales. The car also gained a reputation for rampant body corrosion from which it never recovered.
The K70 was replaced in 1973 by the Audi-based Volkswagen Passat, although it continued in production until February 1975, by which time Volkswagen had produced 210,082 K70s.  An alternative source gives the production total for the K70 as 211,127.    Of these, only 800 were thought to have been produced in right-hand drive for the British market.   The K70 together with the VW 411/412 ended up being the only cars ever to be produced at Salzgitter, the plant being turned over for engine and transmission manufacture for the entire Volkswagen Group, which continues to the present day.
Volkswagen K70