Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Round the world in 14 weeks: before their group appearance at the 2007 Bologna Motor Show, Volkswagen sent the New Small Family on a whistle-stop tour around the world. Today it’s showdown in Italy as the three Up! concept vehicles are revealed side by side for the first time as ambassadors of a new range and as a family.
“For both my team and for me, it was a dream to design these concept vehicles” confirmed Walter de Silva, Chief Designer of Volkswagen Group, at the start of the press conference, “because these cars embody the emergence of a new era. Anyone looking at the New Small Family will immediately see how friendly and neat these Volkswagens are. Cars of this sort are fun. No explanation is needed - they speak for themselves.”
Before their joint debut in Bologna, Volkswagen sent the New Small Family on a whistle-stop tour around the world, starting at the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt on 10 September with the two-door Up!. Just six weeks later, the larger Space Up! microvan made its debut in Tokyo – they impressively demonstrate how every millimetre of space can be exploited using intelligent packaging while at the same time creating an emotional design. Twenty days later and 9,000 air kilometres further eastwards, Los Angeles was presented with the third variant of the New Small Family – the zero-emission Space Up! Blue van. The response was extremely positive all around the globe.
That was perhaps also “because every Up! also demonstrates commitment to protecting our environment” according to Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member with responsibility for Technical Development at Volkswagen. “After all, extremely clean petrol and diesel engines and electric motors will be working in the backs of these cars.”
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Thursday, November 29th, 2007
January’s Dakar Rally promises to be the toughest yet for the Volkswagen works team and its squad of TDI-powered Race Touaregs, for the 30th running of the world’s toughest motorsport event will be longer and more arduous than ever.
Special stage distance has been lengthened by a third over last year, to 5,736 km (3,562 miles), with the treacherous sand dunes of Mauritania set to provide much of the drama during the 16-day trek from Lisbon, Portugal, to the Senegalese capital of Dakar.
Volkswagen will field four works cars – for Spaniard Carlos Sainz, South African Giniel de Villiers, Germany’s Dieter Depping and American Mark Miller – while a fifth Race Touareg will be run by customer team Lagos and driven by Portugal’s Carlos Sousa. Volkswagen is bidding to become the first manufacturer to win the legendary classic with a diesel car.
Newly crowned FIA Cross-Country Rally World Champion Sainz says the 2008 Dakar will be his most arduous yet: ‘It will be longer, tougher and more difficult. We expect lots of sand dunes and there will be two cross-country legs after which we will be allowed no assistance from mechanics.’
Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen added: ‘At almost 6,000 timed kilometres we are in for a very long event, and many days will be spent in the dunes of Mauritania. It will be a great challenge but also a great strain: the drivers and co-drivers will be spending many hours in the cars on the long stages, which means the team will not be able to start work on the cars until late in the evening.’
He believes that the team has a good chance of success following recent tests and promising results in the UAE Desert Challenge in early November, in which Volkswagens finished second and third: ‘We drove a lot on sand on this event and it confirmed that we have achieved notable improvements on this type of terrain.’
‘In Mauritania the rally will return to locations that have not been used on the rally for more than a decade,’ said Dirk von Zitzewitz, who will co-drive for de Villiers. ‘The organisers have announced a number of so-called erg crossings - sand stages that have not previously been driven - and the famous Nega pass, near Kiffa, as special challenges. More than once in the past the outcome of the rally was decided on such types of stage.’
The Volkswagen team’s Race Touaregs, powered by 2.5-litre TDI engines delivering 280 PS, won ten of the 2007 Dakar’s 14 special stages but failed to prevent Mitsubishi claiming a seventh successive overall victory. The Mitsubishi team, led by three-time victor Stéphane Peterhansel, is likely to be Volkswagen’s chief opposition once more. Volkswagen last won the Dakar in 1980, when Swede Freddy Kottulinsky drove his Iltis to victory.
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
For the second year running, the Volkswagen Caddy DSG (Direct Shift Gearbox) has achieved honours at the What Van? magazine Van of the Year Awards.
The Caddy DSG, which uses twin clutch technology to provide faster gearchanges than a conventional automatic gearbox, received the exclusive Editor’s Choice award at the magazine’s 2007 awards ceremony in London on Wednesday 28th November. Last year the Volkswagen DSG won the What Van? Technology Award.
‘More and more manufacturers are offering an alternative to the conventional manual gearbox as an extra-cost option. Nobody, however, has come up with a solution that is quite as novel – or quite as effective – as Volkswagen’s DSG. It’s so impressive that it’s a worthy winner of the What Van? Editor’s Choice Award for 2007,’ said Neil McIntee, the Editor of What Van? magazine.
Gemma Cox, Product Manager, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles said: ‘The What Van? awards are a great testament to Volkswagen’s advanced and efficient technology in the Caddy DSG and the quality Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles provide.’
The efficient, six-speed Volkswagen DSG uses two clutches which allow gear changes to occur in less than four hundredths of a second, enabling it to achieve the same 0-62 mph time of 13.3 seconds as the manual transmission with the same 1.9-litre, 104 PS TDI PD engine.
For the driver, the DSG is as easy to use as a conventional automatic transmission with added bonus of being able to select a manual mode and change gear by simply nudging the gearlever up or down.
The DSG is unique in the commercial vehicle market and is exclusively available in the Volkswagen Caddy van with an on the road price of £12,836.28 excluding VAT – a premium of only £1,000 over the equivalent model with manual transmission.
Other recent awards for the Volkswagen Caddy include Best Small Van from Van Fleet World and Professional Van & Light Truck magazines.
Full information of the Volkswagen Caddy van range is available from www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk or by calling 0800 717131.
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