Volkswagen’s only offering in the hatchback segment, the Volkswagen Polo, has been sincerely serving the market. It is quite interesting to see how well the car has grown over these years and has brought good sales for the German car maker. Considering the sales of the standard Polo, Volkswagen had launched the Polo 1.6 petrol variant for prospective buyers who would want to have more power on tap, but unfortunately the car did not turn out as a good seller.
The car literally survived in the market for a long time with unimpressive numbers, and recently the company had to discontinue the model in the Indian market. Although the car was a powerhouse performed impressively well on the road, the lack of features and visually indistinctive looks were the letdowns. Alto with a larger cubic capacity engine, the prices were significantly high because of higher excise bracket as per the small car taxes in India.
Now the interesting news we have is that recently Overdrive folks have spotted a Volkswagen Polo 1.2 TSI Turbo variant testing in India. TSI clearly means it’s a petrol model and the word turbo (turbocharged) has simply added more to the excitement. In spite of powered by a smaller 1.2 litre turbocharged engine, the performance of this new Polo is said to be much better than Polo 1.6 TSI. And since its smaller petrol engine in terms of cubic capacity, it will attract small car excise, thus a significant saving on the price.
While the 1.6 litre engine is more of a global unit, the 1.2 litre Turbo TSI has been developed specifically for India. Technically speaking, the 1.2 litre engine is a 3 cylinder unit turbocharged unit generates a max torque output of 175 Nm and offers a peak power of 103.5 PS. The torque and power figures are really impressive as the 1.6 litre naturally aspirated engine delivered 153 Nm of torque (22 Nm less than the new 1.2 litre engine) and 105 PS of power (only 1.5 PS more than the 1.2 litre engine).
Moreover the company claims that this new engine will return an impressive fuel average of 17 KMPL, as against 13 KMPL returned by the 1.6 L TSI. Even the Skoda Fabia will is expected to arrive with the same 1.2 litre Turbo unit as Skoda is a fully owned subsidiary of Volkswagen and the Polo and Fabia do have many commonalities. Stay tuned for the launch date and price of the new Polo 1.2 TSI in India.
Image credit – Overdrive/Twitter
