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The monster Volkswagen Touareg R50 is now on sale in the UK, retailing at a price of £61,885 (RRP OTR), a premium of £3,885 over the normal Altitude V10 TDI Touareg.

The price premium comes from tune-ups such as an uprated 5.0 liter V10 TDI engine putting out 350 PS instead of the normal 313 PS – the engine hits this at 3,500rpm, and 750Nm of torque instead of the normal 650Nm, yet puts out the same CO2 emissions as the normal V10 TDI, which is 333g/km.

Other than the engine, the R50 is also differentiated from the Touareg Altitude V10 by its 21 inch Omanyt design wheels, Touareg R-design bodykit, wheel arch extensions, blue brake calipers, and R logos on the pedals, door sills and Nappa sports seats.

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Volkswagen Touareg R50
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Full details of the new Volkswagen Scirocco has officially been unveiled, and Volkswagen says the Scirocco is positioned as an affordable sports car, perhaps the German version of what the Mazda MX5 is.

Three petrol engines and one diesel engine are available. Petrol engines include a 122 horsepower 1.4 liter TSI with 200Nm of torque, a 160 horsepower 1.4 liter TSI with 240Nm of torque, and the venerable 200 horsepower 2.0 liter TFSI engine with 280Nm of torque. The 1.4 liter engines are available with the new dry clutch 7-speed DSG, while the 2.0 liter TFSI and the 140 horsepower TDI turbodiesel with 320Nm of torque is available with the wet clutch 6-speed DSG, the gearbox that changed the landscape of shift performance. All of the manual transmissions are 6-speeders.

The Volkswagen Scirocco is 4,256mm long, 1,810mm wide and 1,400mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,578mm. For comparison sake, the Golf GTI is 4,216mm long, 1,785mm wide and 1,466mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,578mm. The two cars have an identical wheelbase, which means the rear passengers of the Scirocco will most likely enjoy the Golf’s generous rear knee room, but the Scirocco is longer, wider and shorter than the Golf GTI, lending it a much sleeker profile.

The sleek side profile sports a hidden B-pillar, and the front end shows a new Volkswagen front fascia, which might be a preview of the 6th generation Volkswagen Golf’s front end. The Scirocco is a 4-seater with front and rear bucket seats, and it has a 292 liter boot, extendable into the cabin area for a total of 755 liters via the foldable 50:50 split rear bench.

For more photos of the Scirocco, look at the previous post linked below.

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Volkswagen Scirocco photos leaked ahead of debut

Photos of the Volkswagen Scirocco have been released ahead of Volkswagen’s official announcement, so we get to drool at the production version of Volkswagen’s IROC Concept. The production Volkswagen Scirocco gets a new grille, far from the big open mouthed design of the IROC Concept. The 3-door hatch sits lower and wider than a Golf, and the model will debut with a range of forced induction engines, even for the baseline, which will be a 1.4 liter TSI.

Full details of the Volkswagen Scirocco will be revealed closer to the Geneva Motorshow, but for the moment view more shots after the jump including some of the interior, which reveals a 4 seater layout because the rear seat bench is shaped like twin bucket seats.

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All Volkswagen Scirocco models to come with forced induction engines
Volkswagen IROC Concept
Volkswagen IROC Video

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Scirocco photos leaked ahead of debut

According to Reuters, the worker councils of Porsche and Volkswagen have reached an agreement on representation on the new Porsche Automobilholding board, but offered no details as to what the final agreement is. This post will be updated should any more details surface. – Source

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Volkswagen works chief: hostile takeover by Porsche!

Volkswagen works council chief Bernd Osterloh says what started as two German companies growing together has ended up as a hostile takeover of Volkswagen by Porsche. The Volkswagen works council and Porsche is currently in a legal battle over how many workers from Volkswagen should be represented on the supervisory board’s holding company. The current proposal is 3 seats from Volkswagen and 3 seats from Porsche on the board. Naturally, Volkswagen wants more seats, and they justify it with the fact that Volkswagen had over 30 times more workers then Porsche, so it should have greater representation.

Osterloh also thinks that the new holding company which will hold both Porsche and Volkswagen should be called Volkswagen and Porsche Automobilholding instead of just being called Porsche Automobilholding as it is now.

Source

The production Volkswagen Scirocco will be unveiled to us soon, but some tidbits about the new vee-dub have been unveiled – in line with Volkswagen’s TSI strategy the new Scirocco will come in either TSI or TDI form only – this means a 1.4 liter TSI engine and a TDI turbodiesel. Of course, these will be mated to the new dry clutch 7-speed DSG.

Expect many design elements of the Volkswagen iroc Concept (shown above) to be carried over to the production Volkswagen Scirocco.

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Volkswagen iroc Concept
Volkswagen iroc Concept Video – fun in the wet

Volkswagen used to have a pickup truck called the Volkswagen Taro back in 1989, which was essentially a badge engineered Toyota Hilux. The project was discontinued in 1996. Now Volkswagen is developing the second generation Volkswagen Taro, and it is expected to be unveiled at the end of 2009.

Volkswagen had exhibited a pickup truck concept in the early 2000s called the Volkswagen Advanced Activity Concept. It looks pretty much like the Touareg but with a pickup body form. It had an adjustable air suspension which at its highest point allows for 390mm of ground clearance, and at its lowest, 280mm.

The original Taro used a 2.4 liter Toyota diesel engine but the Volkswagen AAC used the big twin turbodiesel direct injection V10 also found in the Touareg, mated to a 6-speed Tiptronic auto and a permanent all-wheel drive system.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Advanced Activity Concept: New Taro?

The new Volkswagen Passat CC made its debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. It is a 4-door sedan based on the Volkswagen Passat platform, but with a different body styling which has a much more sportier, sleeker roofline, intended to give the car a 4-door coupe look ala the Mercedes Benz CLS. The new Passat CC is 50mm lower to the ground compared to the standard Passat, and is 30mm longer.

The new Volkswagen Passat CC will have the new 1.8 liter TSI inline-4 with 160 horsepower as one of its engine options, and the top of the line will be a 300 horsepower 3.6 liter V6 FSI engine. The venerable 2.0 liter TFSI from the Audi A4 and the Golf GTI will also join the lineup later.

It features a few technologies such as Dynamic Drive Control, which adjusts the suspension damping and power steering assistance characteristics to suit the driving pattern. Another feature is Park Assist, which is a self parking system where the Passat CC takes care of steering control and the driver only has to accelerate and brake to ease the car into a parking spot. ACC Automatic Distance Control automatically brakes and accelerates within a speed range input by the car driver, and also avoids frontal collisions using a radar sensor.

The new Volkswagen Passat CC is targeted at the North American, Western European and Japanese markets. It will make its first debut in Q2 2008.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Passat CC – V-Dub’s own CLS

The latest car spotted at JPJ Putrajaya is the Volkswagen Eos, essentially a two-door convertible version of the Volkswagen Golf Mk5.

No indicative launch date so far, but it’s interesting to note that the Volkswagen Eos was so popular in Canada that Volkswagen Canada decided to cancel its introductory campaign because it did not make any financial sense to go ahead with it anymore.

Even before any form of advertising was put up, the Volkswagen Eos had begun to disappear from dealer lots around the country. All of the 2007s stock had nearly sold out from pure word of mouth alone.

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Volkswagen Canada experiences the power of word of mouth
Volkswagen Eos Cabriolet – Details, Photos

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Eos spotted in Putrajaya

According to German publication Auto Motor und Sport, Volkswagen is seriously considering a factory in Thailand with at least a 100,000 units capacity. Total investment would be about 614 million Euros (RM3 billion), and the site would be somewhere in Samut Prakan.

A firm decision has not been made yet, and there has been previous reports of Indonesia also being considered.

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Volkswagen to build assembly plant in Indonesia
Volkswagen looking at Indonesia instead
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Source