We had been hearing a little about an upcoming SUV from Volkswagen and the interesting thing about it was the speculation of it being based on the Volkswagen Polo hatchback. Till now we have nothing to prove that but one of most renowned German publication AutoBild has published a rendering of this Polo based crossover on its website and we are glad that the rendering looks fabulously close.
A few weeks ago another rendering of the same car presented by another renowned publication, Automobile Magazine France but this new rendering seems extremely close. The car is expected to come on roads by 2016 and therefore it will definitely be built on Volkswagen’s MQB Platform which is a flexible platform to be used on new cars by Volkswagen group brands including Skoda and Audi.
image- 2016 Volkswagen Polo Based Crossover Rendering
AutoBild has stated that the crossover was a joint project for Volkswagen and Suzuki who are no longer with each other and the car was named as Rocktan then. Because of the disassociation, Volkswagen has lost enough time on this project and now the German car maker is planning to go all alone on this new crossover.
The car is in its early stage of development and reports say that it looks as aggressive as the Polo. It features all wheel drive technology, dual clutch transmission and a rough road package. Nothing is known whether it would come to India or not but we can expect 2 wheel drive option and 5 speed manual transmission.
Coming to the engine options, reports hint that currently 3 diesel and 4 petrol engines are under testing on the Polo Crossover and they will deliver in the range of 95 – 150 BHP and 100 – 150 BHP of power with diesel and petrol engines respectively.
Pricing is a mystery as well but we can expect it to be priced close to Rs. 14 lakh. This pricing may seem steep as soon we will see some tough competition coming from Ford and Renault in the form of Ford Ecosport and Renault Duster, in the compact SUV segment. These cars will be priced below Rs. 10 lakhs so we believe Volkswagen will have to strip down the European version to suit our price conscious market. But to challenge the low cost SUVs in India an emerging markets, Volkswagen is working on two low cost compact SUVs based on Volkswagen Up and Golf(click here for details).
Source – AutoBild
