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Right on the back of Volkswagen’s two-door city specialist concept launched at Frankfurt, the up!, comes the space up! Concept, which as the name suggests, offers more space. The latest member of VW’s New Small Family range is strangely called the “largest small VWâ€, if that makes any sense, and at 3.68 metres length and 1.63 meters wide, it’s a small matter of 23cm longer than the up!
This results in a wheelbase of 2.56m, nearly 10cm longer than their current supermini, the Fox, despite being over 12cm shorter in overall length.
The entire concept is to create as much interior room as possible without taking up that much space on the road, hence offering the space of a considerably larger vehicle. The clever space concept of the space up! is mostly thanks to its rear-engine layout just like on the Beetle and the Bulli (Microbus) of the past.
Thanks to its elongated wheelbase, the space up! offers four doors, although there are in fact six doors (twice as many as the three-door hatchback up!) in this van concept car as the boot is accessed via a pair of fridge doors. Behind this door are 220 to 1,005 litres of cargo space given the multi-configurable four seat positions.
Design details include a front end featuring headlamps that take an inward diagonal line, the horizontally integrated air inlets (minimized aperture optimizes aerodynamics), the VW logo arranged on the front hood (as the only exterior detail kept in chrome) and the smooth-surfaced bumper with a lower segment.
From the side, the long extended window section flows from a clearly distinctive, powerful C-pillar to an A-pillar positioned far forward in a van-like manner. The space between the A and C pillars is spanned by the line of butterfly doors with opposing hinges. These suicide doors, in the style of the legendary Samba bus, extend across nearly the entire space between the wheel housings – i.e. the entire sill length – all four seating positions are exceptionally convenient to access.
The rear doors seem to fill up practically the entire car area above the bumper. The doors are asymmetrically split 1/3 to 2/3 and when fully opened, offer a cargo width of just over a metre.
While it certainly looks futuristic, its not really that over the top and you can imagine it going into production sometime in the future.
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After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.
Very CUTE
Is it envi-friendly?
It reminds me of kangoo concept and new daihatsu terios.
Paul, do you know whatever happened to the new combi? any idea when it willo be launched? VW has been pretty quite abt it.
good looks, space…magnificent idealogy..
wth
creative…..but ugly?
Imagine what would happen if a motorbike were to hit the back of this thing at rempit speeds… =)
concept vw micro bus not bad though,
hmm, rotating chairs, so now co-driver can scold kids in the face
It looks like Daihatsu!!
That looks really nice, and cute
The rear’s pretty cool… u almost can’t make out the split. And I guess the rear wiper wipes both windows XD
It does look like a mini microbus… which is good i guess (luv d bonsai pic)
Hopely VW takeover Proton as soon as posible so we can drive this car 10 years from now…
Nissan Note looks nicer than this!
Found the similarities?
http://www.nissan.co.jp/CARLINEUP/
http://www2.nissan.co.jp/NOTE/E11/0612/STYLE/main1.html
Woh!! Hope this would the future super minivan of all times.And the rotating seats means umm….. stylish….
This car looks spacious…