Volkswagen Concept Vehicle
Volkswagen's Concept BlueSport went straight to clinics after it appeared at Detroit's Cobo Hall for the North American International Auto Show. VW chief Ulrich Hackenberg likened the car to the Mazda MX-5 Miata in price and necessary volume. It's a global car, he says. "And not just for one brand."
A highly placed source in the VW Group design community told us the Audi version is already done. It's badged R1. Designers had a lot of freedom, says BlueSport designer Thomas Ingenlath. "It's not like doing a new generation of Golf, which has to evolve. It's a new type of car for VW, with no predecessor."
The big issue with a small roadster, he says, is to keep it low-slung, so it doesn't look like a tarted-up front-drive car. Getting a mid-engine layout, he adds, "made the job very tasty. We could work with good proportions. A production car could be made to look pretty much exactly like this, as similar as the first TT was to the TT concept."
He stresses the car was designed as a four-cylinder. Projecting for a V-6 drivetrain would necessitate heavier chassis parts and brakes, so that's not in the plans. It has basically a Golf/Jetta/A3 clean diesel moved aft. The monocoque is steel, but some closing panels are aluminum. In production, engines up to a 2.0-liter TFSI turbo give potential power of well past 200 horses, but the volume sales would likely be with VW's Twincharged (turbo and supercharger) 1.4-liter TFSI. It makes 160horsepower with excellent fuel economy. The Twincharger engine has a seven-speed DSG transmission, while the 2.0 gas and diesel use a six-speed.
