Posted on Monday 21 July 2008
Update: Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has confirmed that the production version of the up! concept car will be offered with a front engine FWD configuration only. The original concept car featured a rear-mounted engine spinning the rear axle but this option was ruled out due to cost. Placing the engine in the front will allow the production up! to share more components with other VW models but interior space will be less than the rear engine option.
The decision to switch the engine layout will also cause a delay of up to five months in development time, with the final version expected to debut now in early 2011, reports Automotive News. The delay means that rival minicars, including Toyota’s upcoming iQ and Fiat’s revived Topolino, will arrive on the market earlier than the VW.
Despite the production hurdles, VW is confident of selling up to half a million units of the up! each year and there are also plans for hatchback, minivan and sedan versions of the car for sale under the Skoda and Seat brands as well.
Original: The up! family of concepts, first shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2007, has been widely accepted as the basis for the next generation of Volkswagen cars. The show version of the five-door space up! variant had been a rear-engine, rear-wheel drive car with a glass hatch over the powerplant. That design has been dropped in favor of a more production-friendly front engine, front-wheel drive design.
Sharing parts across multiple platforms makes expensive R&D projects easier to justify, since the cost can be spread over several models - but that only works if the cars use fundamentally similar designs. Trying to fit a rear-engine, RWD car into a lineup of front-front configurations simply won’t pass the accounting department, no matter how cool it may look on the show floor. Accordingly, VW is packing in its return to placing the business end of its cars at the back and instead considering several of its smaller 1.2L powerplants for the nose of the new up! cars, according to the latest report from Autozeitung.
The little four-cylinder mill should be good for 55hp once a turbocharger is fitted, and such small displacement and minimal power ought to yield good fuel efficiency along with somewhat lackluster performance, even by city-car standards. The Smart ForTwo, for example, manages to wring at least 71hp out of its 1.0L three-cylinder engine, and it only seats two. The plug-in hybrid variant of the up! would make do with an even smaller engine to extend its battery-only range of 50km as far as 500km, though the torque available with electric motors might actually yield better driveability than the petrol version.
well there goes the fun.
Just another city car then, nothing special
This is a big deception, we are going back to boring cars that every one built, from France to China.
There is no ambition in that new FWD plan.
‘guess I’m not buying one now.
…second, a 1.2L 1-4 turbo should be good for a hell of a lot more than 55bhp, even in a very modest state of tune.
VAG should develop a 1.2-liter gasoline engine, it would be placed too close to the current 1.4 TSI. A thyee-cylinder 1.0 TSI would leave a lot more room.
“VAG should develop a 1.2-liter gasoline engine, it would be placed too close to the current 1.4 TSI. A thyee-cylinder 1.0 TSI would leave a lot more room. ”
Right, but the 3 cyk. 1.2 TSI seems already plan, with 86 HP
Anyway, back to the ‘Up!’ it’s a pitty VAG wasn’t able to share their engine with Smart, now that mercedes have sold their shares in Mitsubishi
With a front engine/front drive vehicle VW loses it’s appeal to all the other options available with the same layout at probably less money, namely Toyota, Honda & Mazda. A return to a Rear Drive/Rear Engine layout not only would simplify the design & maintenance it would be unique enough for those people that want a return to simple transportation. Come on VW get rid of your bean counters & do what you were known for -innovation!
I was sure to get one of the RE ones. Now, I doubt it. There is a way that a rear engine car handles, that I have missed in all FWD cars. And, incidentally in the heat of summer, the fresh air that comes through the vents in a rear engine car is cooler because it does not pass over the engine first, or through ducts that have been heated by their proximity to the block.