“Real” VW Beetle to return at Frankfurt show
Newswheel staff :: 02 August 2007 :: Filed under Hatchback, Volkswagen, Volkswagen New Beetle
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Rear-engine concept plus seven other show cars
Making fun of Golf-based VW’s retro-pastiche New Beetle has been pretty reliable sport in recent years. But perhaps we’ll all be eating those uncharitable jibes after VW wheels out a new rear-engine prototype at the Frankfurt show next month…
To be called the City Expert, the concept previews a new uber-cheap people car expected to be sold in developing markets for as little as £3,500. A slightly more upmarket Euro-friendly version will be pitched around the £5,000 price point.
But the City Expert’s real USP will be a range of extremely small capacity two and three-cylinder engines mounted behind the rear axle line in bona fide Beetle style. None of this rebodied, front-drive chassis nonsense, therefore.
Perfect packaging?
However, efficient packaging will allegedly allow it to offer reasonably generous luggage compartments, both front and rear. VW reckons the car is “sensationally flexible.”
The extremely competitive pricing is thought to be possible in part thanks to mechanical simplicity. It’s rumoured the car is nose light enough to not require power steering, for example. Time will tell how well that goes down with pampered westerners.
Various body styles will be available including three and five-door hatches and a four door saloon.
Meanwhile, VW will also be showing off a legion of new and tweaked models at the Frankfurt show. Pass your scanners over the press release below for full details.
PRESS RELEASE
Volkswagen at the IAA 2007: Marketing campaign with eight world premieres
* SUV: World premiere of an agile Tiguan
* Prototype: World premiere of a slick City Expert
* BlueMotion: Six new models at a stroke
Wolfsburg, 01 August 2007 – Volkswagen will present its widest product range of all time at the International Automobile Exhibition (IAA) in Frankfurt (13th to 23rd September). Europe’s no. 1 will be presenting over fifty models on view in Hall 3.0 – eight of them world premieres. One of the highlights: the Tiguan – an entirely new generation of SUV developed to complement the Touareg. And if all that’s not enough: Volkswagen will respond to the official motto of this year’s IAA – “see what’s driving tomorrow” – with a prototype. The heart of this sensationally flexible City Expert will beat where the flat-four “Boxer” engine once did in the Beetle. When the gates open at the IAA, six new BlueMotion models will also make their debut. From 2008 onward Volkswagen will offer nine vehicles under the BlueMotion label.
Volkswagen will welcome visitors to the IAA in an exposition area of 9,000 square metres. The centrepiece of that will be the Tiguan. It is the world’s first production model exclusively equipped with supercharged engines. It offers two particular advantages: lower fuel consumption and still fun to drive. Also new: the remarkably quiet four-cylinder diesel engine with common-rail injection. The two new TDIs produce 103 kW/140 PS and 125 kW/170 PS respectively. Both engines already conform to the Euro 5 exhaust standards that will be introduced in 2009. You will be able to “see what’s driving tomorrow” here and now.
Moreover, Volkswagen will unveil six new BlueMotion models at the same time. Therefore, in the course of 2008, there will be at least nine BlueMotion models available. The Volkswagen BlueMotion environmental label will certainly become a byword for effective environmental protection. The versions already available – the Polo BlueMotion (3.8 litres of Diesel consumed per 100 km and 99 g/km CO2) and Passat BlueMotion (5.1 litres of Diesel consumed per 100 km and 136 g/km CO2) – have already redefined the standards of economy in their respective classes.
