Volkswagen India has not clarified its take on Volkswagen UP for India so far as they have officially said that they are still considering the option and will take a decision on Volkswagen Up for India towards the end of the year 2012. But the recent developments and the spy pictures of Volkswagen Up 4 door small car testing in Pune, India says that VW India might have taken a decision on the same as they are testing these cars on India roads.
These pictures are taken by a member of Team-BHP and he shared some vital information which he got from the folks testing these cars. These cars have gone on test in India very recently (in July 2012 as per our guess) and these cars are expected to launch in India in the year 2013. Apart from the 4 door version of the Volkswagen UP which was equipped with manual transmission, they are also testing a 2 door version with automatic transmission. While the 2 door automatic does not make much sense for India, it might be under testing to see how it fares on Indian roads. There are a lot of minutes details revealed by these pictures, read on.
First look at the interiors and you can tell that it has been stripped down from the European cousin, there is no power windows, even at front doors, the LCD display on the dashboard of the European version is not seen, the steering is also changed to name a few. Since these are the very initial test vehicles a lot of changes are expected in these cars before they hit the production line in Indian plant of Volkswagen. Also the segment to which this car belongs to is below the Volkswagen Polo segment in which the car will be priced quite aggressively to challenge the likes of Maruti Alto, Wagon R and Hyundai i10. To keep the pricing aggressive, Volkswagen will also start developing local vendors for higher localization of the UP in India so that it can be economically viable to sell it in India.
The looks on the front seem quite simple and elegant, car has a tall-boy kind of design and has chunky looking headlamps with small grille which is hidden behind the registration plate section of the front bumper, which gives it quite distinct and cute front fascia.
The interiors seem to have minimal electrical controls, the windows are manual, outside rear view mirror adjustment can be done from inside but that too is manual, the dashboard seems very upmarket and in light theme, but it may not be the final colour theme for Indian model.
The side glass Windows are large and give the car a really airy feel. There is ample light entering the cabin making it feel spacious, the rear hatch door is large glass door something like we see in Honda Brio small car. All in all this car does look pretty interesting and we expect that it will hit Indian roads somewhere in mid of 2013. The reason why we believe so is that there have been many reports on a VW UP low cost version of emerging markets, and the UP has been spotted testing in Brazil also, so the pieces of puzzle seems to join and indicate that Indian and Brazil may get Volkswagen Up low cost 4 door version next year. We will keep you posted on all the latest developments of the Volkswagen Up for India, stay tuned for more.
Via – ICB, image credits – Team-BHP
