Archive for Volkswagen

The 3 units of Volkswagen Scirocco GT24 race cars that participated in the recent Nurburgring 24 hours race managed to clinch the 11th, 15th, and 32nd place, not too bad for a vehicle that was developed, built and tested in two and a half months.

In the 2.0 liter turbocharged engine class, the three cars also claimed the first, second and fifth position, with the leading team comprised of Hans-Joachim Stuck, Jimmy Johansson, Florian Gruber and Thomas Mutsch. The second place car was piloted by Carlos Sainz, Giniel de Villiers, Dieter Depping, and Hans-Joachim Stock again.

Under the hood is a 325 PS version of the Volkswagen Group’s 2.0 liter TFSI engine, mated to a 6-speed DSG gearbox.

Volkswagen has unveiled a “road-going” concept version of the race-prepared Volkswagen Scirocco entering in the Nurburging 24-hour race this weekend. The concept Scirocco is called the Volkswagen Scirocco GT24 Concept, and is powered by a 300 horsepower version of Volkswagen’s 2.0 liter TFSI engine.

All 300 horses are sent to the Scirocco GT24’s front wheels via a 6-speed twin clutch gearbox with uprated clutches, revised gear ratios, and a lightened flywheel. The GT24 also has an LSD differential lock. Overall weight has dropped to 1120kg, down 178kg from the production Scirocco.

The new Volkswagen Scirocco GT24 is 227mm longer and 61mm wider than the standard road-going Scirocco. Ride height is also 75mm lower thanks to lowered adjustable race dampers. Brakes are large 362mm discs with 6-piston calipers, peeking out from behind large 18 inch lightweight racing wheels.

On the interior, the driver and front passenger sits snug in lightweight Recaro bucket seats equipped with five-point racing harnesses. The interior also has a rollcage, a unique flat-bottomed steering wheel, an electronic display, and a fire extinguisher. Looks like despite this being a “road-going” version, its still pretty much ready for the track.

Two more images after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Scirocco GT24 Concept

Click to enlarge

The Nurburgring 24 Hours is officially called the ADAC 24h Rennen Nürburgring, introduced by ADAC as a low cost alternative to the 1000 km Nürburgring aimed mainly towards amateur drivers and relatively cheap production cars.

One more shot after the jump.

Related Posts:
VIDEO: Volkswagen Scirocco Design Interview
Volkswagen Scirocco Full Details Unveiled

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Scirocco to enter Nürburgring 24 Hours

Volkswagen’s Head of Exterior Design Mark Lichte shares with us the design process in coming up with the new Volkswagen Scirocco coupe (more like a lower and wider 3-door hatch), which was first introduced to us as the Volkswagen iroc Concept.

Lichte described the task as “to design the sportiest Volkswagen ever made”, and that could be true as while cars like the Golf GTI and Golf R32 are scorchers in their own right, they look like normal hatchbacks with an aggressive kit slapped on.

Watch the two-part interview videos after the jump, as well as a few more videos on the Volkswagen Scirocco.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: Volkswagen Scirocco Design Interview

The Volkswagen Lavida is a Chinese market sedan developed entirely by Shanghai Volkswagen outside of Germany. The interior and exterior does not look very much Volkswagen at all, but the good news is you will find modern Volkswagen engines and 6-speed automatic gearboxes under its hood.

The Lavida measures 4,608mm long, 1,743mm wide, and 1,465mm tall with a wheelbase of 2,610mm. It’s sedan boot stores 472 liters. This makes it longer, sider and taller than the Volkswagen Jetta, but smaller than the Volkswagen Passat. It’s wheelbase is also longer than the Jetta’s 2,578mm.

Continue reading after the jump for more photos including one of the Volkswagne Lavida’s interior.

Related Older Posts:
Volkswagen Lavida for the Chinese domestic market

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Lavida – more details and photos

The car above is the Volkswagen Lavida, a Chinese domestic market model that has been developed and set to be sold only in the China market as it was developed for domestic tastes. I’m not sure how the name was chosen, but it could be taken from the Spanish phrase La Vida which means “the life”, as Ricky Martin has propagated.

It is built on the Volkswagen PQ34 platform with an increased wheelbase of 2,610mm, the base platform for the Mk4 Volkswagen Golf and Mk1 Skoda Octavia. This puts it in the region of a C-segment sedan in terms of wheelbase, with the Lavida having a wheelbase 10mm longer than the current Toyota Corolla Altis. Under the hood is a choice of engines from 1.6 liters to 2.0 liters.

You will find that various press around the internet has called the car an A-segment sedan, but Chinese model size segmentation is different from the rest of the world, with even the big Volkswagen Passat classified as a B+ sedan.

Other dimensions include a length of 4608mm, a width of 1743mm and a height of 1465mm. The car weighs 1245kg for the 1.6 liter and 1323kg for the 2.0 liter.

Volkswagen has updated the 3.0 liter V6 TDI engine installed in the Volkswagen Touareg with a version that puts out more power, torque, and yet emits less CO2 pollution – 262g/km versus 278g/km.

The new engine now makes 240 PS, which is 15 PS more than before. Peak torque has been raised by 10% from 500Nm to 550Nm. Thanks to the increased power and torque, 0 to 100km/h acceleration times now take 8.3 seconds, a drop of 0.9 seconds from the previous 9.2 seconds figure.

The new engine is Euro 5 compliant and features a Diesel Paritculate Filter.

Related Posts:
Volkswagen Touareg R50 now on sale in the UK
Volkswagen Touareg R50
Volkswagen Touareg 3.6 V6 FSI facelift in Malaysia

The Fiat Bravo GT has fresh new more higher powered competition now – Volkswagen Group Malaysia has launched the Volkswagen Polo GTI in Malaysia. While the above picture shows the 3-door version, we get the 5-door.

Powered by a 1.8 liter 20 valve (5 valve per cylinder) turbocharged inline-4 engine mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox, the 0 to 100km/h sprint in the 1,164kg Polo GTI takes 8.2 seconds. The turbocharged engine is a familiar one as a variation of it has been used in many Volkswagen and Audi cars including the Mk4 Golf GTI. It produces 150 horsepower at 5,800rpm and a 220Nm of torque peaking at a low 1,950rpm, staying constant all the way up to 4,500rpm.

Safety features include ESP stability control, TCS traction control to reel in the wheelspin, and Electronic Differential Lock (EDL), which brakes an individual driven wheel when the ABS sensors detect the wheel is slipping so that power is transmitted to the wheel with better traction. EDL functions at speeds up to 40km/h. These three systems work together to ensure you do not get into trouble with the Polo GTI. You’ve got 4 airbags – front and side.

Wheels are 16 inch wrapped with 205/45R16 tyres – this means the CrossPolo’s wheels are even bigger, but I’m sure Volkswagen engineers have packaged this particular wheel and tyre size to work well with the rest of the suspension and chassis parameters.

The Volkswagen Polo GTI goes for RM139,960 without insurance. Watch a video and see more photos of the car after the jump.

Related Posts:
Volkswagen Polo GTI 1.8T Test Drive Review
2006 Volkswagen Polo GTI
Volkswagen Polo GTI 1.8 Turbo
Volkswagen Polo GTI Cup Edition

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Polo GTI launched in Malaysia

Click to enlarge

The JPJ building at Putrajaya is a great place to see what new CBU cars are coming soon to our shores, and this latest visit by reader JDMD reveals to us that we will soon be able to buy the new Volkswagen CrossTouran. The best part is the badging on the car seems to indicate that it is powered by the new 1.4 liter TSI engine, and perhaps the new 7-speed dry clutch DSG.

Look after the jump and you will also find a TSI-badged Volkswagen Jetta, which could be a third model added to the existing 1.6 and 2.0 FSI models, or depending on which state of tune the TSI engine is in, could replace either the 1.6 or the 2.0 FSI model.

Related Posts:
2007 Volkswagen CrossTouran
Volkswagen announces new 7-speed DSG gearbox
New 122hp single-turbo 1.4 liter and 7-speed DSG from Volkswagen

Click here to read the rest of New Volkswagen models sighted at JPJ Putrajaya

Click to enlarge

The Volkswagen CrossPolo is based on the Polo, its less rugged-looking sibling. It is essentially a Polo with larger wheels, a rugged SUV-like bodykit and a raised suspension. Don’t expect to go very far off the tarmac with the CrossPolo, though a higher ride height may give you a little more peace of mind when negotiating mildly flooded highways – like the Middle Ring Road near Bandar Tasik Selatan.

Read my test drive report after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen CrossPolo 1.6 Test Drive Report