Volkswagen AG have reacted to customer feedback by introducing a 5-seat layout for the Passat CC. In European markets the new rear bench seat option is priced at a low €100 (approx AU$155). The new seating arrangement features an asymmetric split option to allow for extra load storage from the boot. All three seats feature head restraints and lap-sash seatbelts.
Volkswagen Australia is yet to confirm local availability of this option.
Here’s a short and sweet photo gallery showing the Volkswagen Amarok getting down and dirty during the 2010 Dakar Rally. In all 35 Amaroks were used during the event, 20 of those assisting the successful Race Touareg teams, while the other 15 were used by media and race officials. Looks like they had fun.
Wheels magazine announced today that the Volkswagen Golf VI has won their coveted Car of the Year award. Ged Bulmer, Wheels editor said, “The turbocharged, five-door hatch VW Golf range is outstanding. The Golf oozes sophistication, refinement and development—in an energetic package that comes with fundamentally good steering and balance.”
The local award rounds out a solid 2009 at the awards table for Volkswagen with the Golf claiming the World Car of the Year title, among a raft of Australian awards, as well. The new Polo was also awarded the 2010 European Car of the Year title.
The sixth generation model is the first Golf since the original Mk1 model in 1976 to win the Wheels gong. Volkswagen’s Golf edged out the Toyota Prius, Skoda Superb and Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan after judges cut the original 22-car field down to a final four.
UPDATE: Volkswagen’s PR machine is on the case and their press release can be viewed after the jump. Anke Koeckler, Volkswagen Group Australia managing director is naturally keen to promote the Golf as best-in-class, “The Golf’s selection as Wheels Car of the Year is the crowning achievement of an extraordinary year for the new Golf after already being named ‘Best Mid size car over $30,000’ by Australia’s Best Car Award and winning the 2009 Cars Guide Car of the Year and 2009 DRIVE Car of the Year awards.
“Winning the Wheels Car of the Year is proof the new Golf is at the pinnacle of automotive design and engineering yet is still attainable, a winning combination obviously.”
If you have a modicum of common sense you will have missed the live announcement on the abominable A Current Affair last night. The edited clip featuring just the Wheels COTY segment can now be seen at ninemsn video.
[Source: CarPoint]
Carlos Sainz has avenged his disappointment from last year’s Dakar Rally on the way to headlining a clean sweep of the podium for the diesel powered Volkswagen Race Touraegs. It is the first time Volkswagen have claimed a one-two-three finish at the Dakar and follows their one-two result from the 2009 race.
Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz (#303) finished 2 minutes 12 seconds ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timo Gottschalk (#306). Third place was taken by Mark Miller and Ralph Pitchford (#305). Last year’s winners Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz (#300) finished seventh.
Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen was understandably elated with the unprecedented success for his team, “Three weeks ago a highly motivated Volkswagen team came with the goal of successfully defending the ‘Dakar’ title won last year. Volkswagen has achieved something historical with this one-two-three.”
Sainz, who can now add the Dakar crown to his two World Rally Championship titles, said “I have fulfilled a dream by winning the ‘Dakar’. An enormous weight has fallen from my shoulders particularly as the fight for victory was extremely hard both physically and enormously exhausting mentally.
“Everything ran perfectly for me: My co-driver Lucas Cruz did an excellent job, from the technical side the Race Touareg ran like clockwork and the entire Volkswagen squad worked tirelessly for the win. Thank you for this.”
It’s the first time an all-Spanish crew has won the event and Cruz was over the moon with the win, “After so much pressure over the last few days it goes without saying that I’m incredibly happy on the day of my first ‘Dakar’ victory. I think we have beaten tough competitors and also one of the hardest ‘Dakar’s’ ever.
“Carlos approached his job throughout the entire event patiently, concentrated but also with great tenacity. He is a great champion, it’s fantastic to win with him.”
A huge image gallery from the Volkswagen Motorsport team can bee seen after the jump, along with extensive press releases including quotes from all Race Touareg driving crews.
Mark Webber has spent some time on the off-season trying his hand as a motoring hack. At least, that’s how it’s been presented in UK daily newspaper the Telegraph. Given the icy conditions it was little more than a bit of hit and giggle really. But, if you’re a hot hatch fan then of course you’ll want to know what he thought of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Renaultsport Megane 250 and Ford Focus RS.
When asked if the hot hatch genre was respected back home Mark’s reply would have gone down well at the recent Summernats festival, “Nah mate. Anything less than five litres ain’t big back home.”
For the full text follow the link below. Images of the test trio, without the snow, can be seen after the jump. Click on the pics to load 2000px wallpaper-friendly versions.
[Source & main pic: Telegraph.co.uk | Thanks to Rick for the tip]
US based site VWvortex brings us some great coverage of the New Compact Coupe, including this rendering of how they expect the next Jetta sedan will look. In fact, the report says the profile of the show car is pretty much exactly the same as the final shape for the production version of the four-door Jetta sedan, which is expected to go on sale in the US before October.
This is clearly Volkswagen’s best effort in recent years at making the Jetta a proper stand alone model, rather than simply “a Golf with a boot”. Moving away from platform sharing, to a degree, VW will rather employ component sharing across its model range. This Jetta, for example, has a wheelbase around 75mm longer than the Golf VI, but it will share components from the Polo, Passat and everything in between.
As you can see from the images of the New Compact Coupe, interior styling has also been given a hand to establish an identity of its own. Sure, it’s all Volkswagen design language, as you would expect. Now, though, the Golf and Jetta will appear as siblings, rather than identical twins in different outfits.
More on the New Compact Coupe from the Detroit show can be seen at the VWvortex gallery.
UPDATE 13 January: For more Jetta speculation head on over to The Motor Report.
[Source: VWvortex]
Given yesterday’s news of the New Compact Coupe this special edition Eos model announced by Volkswagen Australia, called the White Night, looks like a bit of an afterthought.
Featuring a Candy White body with a Deep Black roof the convertible can be optioned with a 147kW TSI petrol engine ($55,990) or 103kW TDI diesel ($53,990). Pricing for the White Night special edition is $3,500 more than the corresponding series model.
The White Night is only available with a 6-speed DSG transmission. There’s black leather with light contrast stitching, specially painted 18″ “Budapest” alloys, lowered sports suspension and an extra splash of black paint on the grille and wing mirrors.
Volkswagen call this a limited edition model, but at this stage are unable to put a number to the expected sales run. I dare say, if you want one, you’ll get one. So, you know the drill, head on down to your local dealer and ask a few questions.
Today Volkswagen presents its stunning New Compact Coupe at the NAIAS in Detroit. There’s a nice and cuddly green side to this car, but for now, let’s just focus on the looks.
Said to offer a hint of what to expect from Volkswagen’s new four-door Jetta, which is due for release later this year, the New Compact Coupe takes some definite styling cues from the VAG stable. The high crease shoulder line and C-pillar is akin to the Audi A5, albeit somewhat straightened out. The rear tail lights, too, take inspiration from the current A4 sedan. There’s even a bit of 3 Series coupe Hofmeister kink in the rear fixed pane window.
Overall, though, well, what a beautiful design. Every detail is bang on, from the squared off headlights, to sharply styled wing mirrors. In silver, under controlled lighting the New Compact Coupe looks just about perfect.
Just don’t look too closely at the light gray interior! Aside from the colouring, the rest of the interior is smartly laid out with nice details throughout. Ford could definitely learn a thing or two from the Germans here.
Now, to the car’s green credentials. Volkswagen has made sure the NCC will attract attention with its looks, so this will only help the company push their Hybrid technology under the car’s skin. The headline figures are fuel consumption of 4.2l/100km with CO2 emissions of just 98g/km. That CO2 figure is quite good, but the fuel consumption isn’t setting any records, with a handful of production cars already bettering those numbers.
Forget that, as the New Compact Coupe can use its 110kW 1.4 litre TSI petrol and 20kW electric engines to propel itself to 100km/h in 8.6 seconds with a top speed of 227km/h. Kind of pointless when you’re promoting a Hybrid car, but it’s good to know anyway. And, in Volkswagen’s words they want this car to be “sporty and fun to drive”.
More detail on the NCC’s clever gadgets and engine spec is given in the second press release below. Fourteen more images are also available after the jump. As always, simply click on the pic you like to access it in a wallpaper-friendly 2000px super image.
Volkswagen are happy on two counts as far as the 2010 Dakar Rally goes. Firstly, approaching half race distance Carlos Sainz currently leads the rally in his Race Touareg. However, of more importance to Volkswagen’s production vehicles is the debut of the new Amarok which is being used as a support vehicle during the event.
There are 35 Amaroks on duty during Dakar, with 20 for the Volkswagen race team, and a further 15 used by race officials. The Amarok is being built in Argentina, and the SUV has just gone on sale in South America. Australian deliveries are due towards the end of this year.
As you would expect, VW’s top brass are not missing the promotional opportunities presented by the Amarok’s Dakar role, “We are thrilled to put the new Amarok through its paces as part of this long distance challenge, the world’s toughest, before its official launch,” said Stephan Schaller, CEO of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
If you want to find out more on the Amarok, including updates from Dakar, then check out Volkswagen’s special microsite. For more on the progress of the Race Touaregs at the rally take a peek at Volkswagen’s Dakar iPhone app.
According to official VFACTS figures released earlier today new vehicle sales in Australia for 2009 reached 937,328, an overall drop of 7.4% compared to 2008.
November’s cracking results showed the motor industry was well on the way to financial recovery and December followed suit registering 88,708 sales. Which sets a new record for the month.
FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar acknowledged the role of the Federal Government’s tax incentives for businesses in returning better than expected yearly figures, “The final outcome for the year has surpassed the industry’s original expectations by some 57,000 vehicles and a significant proportion of this additional volume can be attributed to the tax break.”
Toyota (200,191), Holden (119,658) and Ford (96,501) were the top three selling marques. Toyota’s stranglehold on top spot looks very secure, despite the highest selling car in Australia for 2009 being the Holden Commodore (44,387). The Corolla (39,013) and HiLux (38,457) rounded out the top three selling models nationwide.
Other notable performers were Audi, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen. But it seems most manufacturers have a positive spin to sell and a raft of press releases to that affect follow this article.
Audi, intent on chasing BMW for the top selling prestige marque, concluded 2009 with their fifth year of growth. Impressively, the German brand bettered last year’s record by over 20% while recording 11,310 sales. A perfect end to the local career of Audi Australia’s managing director, Joerg Hofmann. The hard task master will be returning home to Germany at the end of this month—see carsales interview from December 2009.
Mitsubishi have put the corpse of the Magna well behind it, achieving best ever annual sales for the Lancer (21,362) and Triton (18,182).
Volkswagen improved on its 2008 record year by selling over 30,000 vehicles for the first time under the Volkswagen Group Australia banner.
According to the latest Register for the Specialist & Enthusiast Vehicle Scheme (SEVS) Volkswagen’s Scirocco is eligible for low level imports. A similar process was used for the Nissan GTR, by which a company called GT Compliance was able to import small numbers of GTRs to Australia prior to Nissan Australia introducing the car.
It is unclear as to who is behind this application, but one can certainly see a scenario where an independent party is prepared to bring the Scirocco down under while Volkswagen Australia cools it heels.
It is worth noting that eligibility under SEVS does not mean the car automatically complies to Australian Design Rules (ADRs). The SEVS website states: “The fact that a vehicle is included on the Register of Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicles does not guarantee it will be able to gain approval to be plated. A vehicle may not be able to satisfy specific ADR requirements even though it meets the requirements set out for eligibility on the Register.”
According to the ruling only the Scirocco 2.0 TSI and Scirocco R have been approved. The 2.0 TSI uses the the same 155kW engine found in the current Golf GTI. The Scirocco R uses a 195kW engine, which is closely related to the Audi S3.
There has been a lot of talk about the Scirocco, one month it’s coming, next month it’s not coming. Volkswagen Australia representatives have been quite guarded about it all. AUSmotive understands the decision on importing the Scirocco rests with Volkswagen Australia. That is, there would be no obstacles presented by Volkswagen AG in Germany if they decided to add the car to its local lineup.
AUSmotive will keep an ear to the ground on this development and will pass on any news as it comes to hand.
You can view the Scirocco’s SEVS ruling HERE, or a screen grab is available below.
[Thanks to Mark for the tip]
Volkswagen are not new to complementing their activities with iPhone apps, and now we can add another to the list with the launch of ‘Volkswagen Rally mobile – 2010 Dakar’. It’s a free application and is available for download now via iTunes.
‘Rally mobile’ will allow users to follow the progress of Volkswagen’s Race Touareg 2 teams during Dakar (1-17 January). Updates will include daily summaries, video reports and access to stage maps. Could be worth a look.