2011 Volkswagen Jetta being hoisted into launch position - Click above to watch video after the jump
It's said, by America's postmen at least, that nothing will stop them from delivering your mail. Comparable dedication is found in carmakers, who will do everything that time, city permits and bagfuls of money will allow in order to put on a good show for the press.
Case in point: The 2011 Jetta launch is still going on in San Francisco right now, and to create the right impact, Volkswagen put a Jetta on the fourth floor of the St. Regis hotel. It took halting a few lanes of traffic and a ol' big crane to make it happen, but nothing succeeds like excess, right? Maybe next time the can do like Porsche did with the Panamera and just use the elevator... Follow the jump for the video.
Those of you unenamoured of the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta have an alternative if you're still interested in procuring one of V-Dub's entry-level runabouts.
The current SportWagen variant of the Jetta will carry on unchanged for the 2011 model year, complete with better materials, a more sophisticated rear suspension and that useful hatch.
According to TheCarConnection, the decision not to migrate the wagon over to the all-new platform of the 2011 Jetta sedan was a cost-saving measure, so it will continue to be built in Germany using the Mark V's underpinnings.
But it's not all wine and roses. While the gas-fed 170-hp five-cylinder and 140-hp TDI diesel four will carry over (the Reagan-era Two-Point-Slow won't be an option), you'll still have to deal with the somewhat cramped rear legroom of the current model, as VW has no immediate plans to utilize the new Jetta's architecture anytime soon. However, expect a few cosmetic upgrades to happen at some point next year to bring the styling more in line with the rest of the VW lineup.
Oh so tasty. Few things on this planet push our buttons like a cleanly modified car, which is exactly why we're still drooling over the shots of the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta that VW Vortex spotted at this year's Waterfest. Ze People's automaker graced the crowd with one squeaky example of its new four-door, complete with a host of new look-faster parts, presumably pulled straight from the Volkswagen Accessories Catalog. Look closely and you'll spot a smattering of aero additions, including a reworked front bumper, sculpted side skirts and similarly sexy rear fascia. The company also threw a lip spoiler on the rear deck and bolted up a set of blacked-out wheels.
As far as we know, VW didn't lay a finger on the car's engine bay, which means that even if the Jetta is packed with the company's most potent turbo 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, we're still looking at around 200 horsepower. If it were us, we'd be hunting up an ECU reflash to eek out a few extra ponies to match the menacing looks. If you want to put your eyes on a few extra shots of the car, head on over to VW Vortex for the full monty.
An automobile's interior is just as important as its exterior when the time comes to close the sale. Keenly aware of this, Volkswagen has redone the Brazilian-market Fox and put a special emphasis on evolving the interior from low-rent to high-end. And a clever ad by agency AlmapBBDO puts it front and center.
Masterful advertising instantly grabs your attention, and seeing a Volkswagen Fox turned inside-out like a sock in the laundry basket is cause for a double-take. As the Fox shares plenty with the Euro-market Polo, there's been talk of the Fox heading to the U.S. market, but since the Polo has been all but canned for Stateside consumption, don't count on it.
Regardless of any migration north, Volkswagen has lavished some attention on the Fox by updating the exterior to keep the looks in line with the rest of the family. The interior, a source of previous criticism, has been changed, and is a point of pride for Volkswagen, hence its prominence in the advertising. The sharpened Fox is now wearing a more premium look as it continues to battle with the Chevrolet Agile and Ford Fiesta in the Latin American market.
2011 Volkswagen Caddy - Click above for high-res image gallery
It's been nearly six years since Volkswagen took the knife to its workhorse Caddy, but starting next year, buyers can expect a host of changes. The company has just dished the details on its next-generation van before the vehicle gets its official unveiling at the IAA Hanover Commercial Vehicle Show this November. Don't expect anything too wild to crop up design-wise. The Caddy will swipe a few cues from the rest of the VW family up front, and new taillights will pop up as well. VW says that it will also offer roof rails for the first time on the new generation.
Take a peek under the hood, and you're likely to see one of four turbo-diesel engines, all of which are 13 percent more efficient than their predecessors. The range starts with two 1.6-liter mills producing either 75 or 102 horsepower depending on which model you choose, both of which come with start/stop technology. If you click off a little higher up the option sheet, you'll wind up with one of two 2.0-liter engines. Those produce either 110 or 140 horsepower depending on your needs and your budget. Hit the jump for the full press release.
The Volkswagen scientists at MTE recently decided that their Golf R32 BiTurbo just wasn't quite up to snuff. While the company had already managed to drag staggering amounts of power out of the little German hatch, the project simply lacked that certain muchness that a true tuner purebred needs in order to stand out of the crowd. The solution? Yank 785 horsepower and 586 lb-ft of torque from the car - a 55 horse jump over the previous iteration of the project.
Yeah, we think that'll do just fine.
How'd they do it? For starters, there's a pair of mammoth Garrett G28/71 turbos under the hood pushing on forged internals. The team also reworked the cylinder heads, bolted on a water/methanol-injection intake manifold and unique cast-iron exhaust manifold. The whole kit breathes through an up-sized stainless steel exhaust system, and MTE says that it has limited the wicked little Golf at 193 mph. In order to cope with that kind of speed, the VW wears Brembo six-piston calipers and KW Variant 3 coilovers along with semi-slick tires. Hit the jump for a look at the car back when it was in its lowly 730-horsepower guise.
2011 Volkswagen Jetta - Click above for high-res image gallery
For Volkswagen of America, it doesn't get more brot-und-butter than the Jetta. Forced into the shadow of the best-selling Golf, VW Germany's refrain was "Sell more Golfs!" To which VoA would steadfastly reply, "Americans don't want hatchbacks!"
This went on for over two decades until the corporate mothership finally recognized that its compact sedan was what the people wanted Stateside. So for 2011, the Jetta has been restyled, reformed and reinvigorated with a new purpose: to take on the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, not to mention the Mazda3.
How? This story begins and ends with price. A 2011 Jetta in "S" trim will set you back just $15,995. Compare that to the 2010 model, which starts at $17,735, and the Civic and Corolla which clock in at $15,655 and $15,450, respectively. The "German premium" has finally been addressed. But at what cost? We trekked to San Francisco to find out.
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Chris Shunk, Sam Abuelsamid, Chris Paukert and Dan Roth are the crew for Episode #187 of the Autoblog Podcast. We cover Lamborghini rumors, the new Ford Explorer's fuel economy with its rumored EcoBoost powertrain, the rumors swirling around the possibility that the Wall Street Journal printed an article that was a plant from Toyota, a sports car based on the Nissan Leaf, and the seemingly insatiable appetite for German premium cars. We hit your feedback and questions before throwing in the towel at the hour and a half mark. Thanks for listening, see you next time!
Autoblog Podcast #187 - Lamborghini rumors, Explorer economy, media plants, a sporty Leaf and premium Germans
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2011 Volkswagen Jetta - Click above for high-res image gallery
Volkswagen has big plans for the U.S. auto industry. By 2018, The People's Automaker plans to sell a combined one million VWs and Audis per year; or about three times current sales numbers. VW has a plant in Tennessee that will build a planned 150,000 midsized sedans per year and a new, lower cost Jetta is expected to nab more of the coveted C-segment pie. The automaker plans to turn a profit here in the States by 2012 or 2013, a full decade after the last profit in 2002.
Like we said, VW has set the bar very high, but there's a big problem. The German automaker currently doesn't have a leader here in the U.S. Stefan Jacoby, a 25-year vet at VW, stepped down last month, leaving a thoroughly-engineered vacuum at the top of VW's U.S. org chart. VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, who reportedly planned to detail the company's road map to prosperity at a Jetta test drive on Monday, still hasn't named a North American CEO.
We don't make cars, but we're pretty sure if you want to triple sales in eight years it's a great idea to have strong leaders in place. We have little doubt VW will eventually find a suitable replacement for Jacoby, but whomever gets the job is going need broad shoulders for all the weight that's going to be placed on them.
Speaking outside its Electronics Research Lab in Palo Alto, California, Volkswagen chairman Dr. Martin Winterkorn reconfirmed the automaker's commitment to bring electric vehicles to market in 2013, beginning with the eGolf compact and eUp! city car.
Drawing a faint parallel to the original Beetle, Winterkorn told the assembled media that "Volkswagen is working on the electric car for everyone." And one of the first electrified V-Dubs will be its bread-and-butter Golf hatchback.
"The automotive industry is reinventing itself," Winterkorn continued, "and Volkswagen will be the first automaker to mass produce the electric car for everyone." VW believes that electric vehicles are the next great revolution in the automobile, and in order to achieve its goal of becoming the world's top automaker by 2018, it believes it has to dominate the EV segment.
In addition to bringing two EVs to market in the next three years, the Touareg Hybrid (shown above) is being produced, with the hybrid Golf and Jetta due later that year and the hybrid Passat following in 2012. All of which VW considers to be interim products.
Although current battery technology has limited the eGolf to a 100-mile range when fitted with a 26.5 kWh battery pack, Winterkorn asserts that "Our customers are not willing to compromise. They expect the same thing from a standard [internal-combustion engine] Golf as they would from an electric Golf." But until its partnerships with Samsung, Toshiba and other battery manufacturers pan out and develop lighter, smaller, less expensive and higher capacity batteries, they'll have their work cut out for them.
When asked what VW plans to do about vehicle weight, Winterkorn rattled off a litany of advanced materials - from carbon fiber to magnesium - and told Autoblog that the next generation of Volkswagen products will undergo a weight loss program.
We'd already heard that we wouldn't be getting the conventionally-powered version of Volkswagen's city car, the Up! Now we hear, per Autocar, that it won't be called the Up!, it will be called Lupo. The Lupo, a nameplate known throughout Europe until it ceased production in 2005, was VW's small, sub-Polo offering. In its new incarnation, the Lupo will replace the Fox, currently the smallest VW sold.
The conventional power of the Up!/Lupo will also come with a more conventional powertrain layout. The rear underfloor-mounted engine was innovative yet ultimately too complex for production. The Lupo that goes on sale next summer is expected to be offered with the choice of either a 1.0-liter three-cylinder gas engine putting out 75 horsepower or a 1.2-liter Bluemotion-branded diesel.
The E-Up that will supposedly hit our shores in 2013 might be coming as an Audi only. The VW Group plans to spread the Up!/Lupo gospel throughout its companies, but the electrified version is being worked on "in partnership with" Audi. Since Audi's already getting all kinds of electric ink in the U.S. thanks to its sexy e-tron concepts, and with the price premium electric cars command, we wouldn't be surprised if the electric Lupo initially comes to the U.S. wearing interlocking nose rings.
There's no better way to get to know a vehicle than washing it yourself. So rather than sending it through the local hand-wash last weekend, I pulled out a bucket and got sudsy for the first time... in a while.
After a run through the Altamont Hills the previous day, our long-term Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition was coated from windshield to air dam with crickets - something that happens in the hills the same time each year. While I expected the massive grille to be covered in the little bastards, what I didn't expect to find (after I toweled everything down, natch) was hundreds of the buggers wedged in between the lower bumper and the underbody tray. A small gap in between the two panels allowed the loud-legged Gryllidaes to go antenna-first into the slot, requiring a strong hose and a flathead screwdriver to get them out. Messy - but the again, genocide normally is.
Click above for gallery of the graphics from J.D. Power and Associates
Porsche once again grabs the top spot (for the sixth time in a row) in the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Automotive Performance, Execution, and Layout (APEAL) Study. This year's study asked 76,000 owners 90 days after purchasing their 2010 model-year cars "how gratifying their new vehicle is to own and drive." The answer, for the first time since 1997, was that the domestic brands were more "appealing" as a whole than the imports (the domestics earned a score of 787 on a 1,000-point scale - 13 points greater than the imports).
Automotive News has put together its list of 2010 auto industry all-stars, and taking first place in American, European and Asian CEO categories are Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Volkswagen CEO Dr. Martin Winterkorn, and Hyundai-Kia CEO Chung Mong-koo. Hard to fault the choices, and it shouldn't come as a surprise at all that the same three gentlemen took slots two through four of Motor Trend's list of top 50 auto execs for 2009.
Mulally was cited because his "steadfast plan to turn Ford around is bearing fruit in impressive fashion" and Chung was lauded for having " turned the Hyundai brand into a superpower." Winterkorn, who could have been awarded based on VW's Hulk-like growth, was actually noted for his "Strategy 2018," by which time he plans for the VW group to be selling ten million cars per year. Check this spot in eight years to see if he's still an all-star. For now, though, congrats to all.
KBB reader-submitted auto reviews - Click above to watch the videos after the jump
We've seen a lot of consumer-grade video in our day (we've made a few, too), and the quality can be less than astounding. So when we got wind of the fact that Kelley Blue Book was hosting a contest awarding $10,000 to the best consumer car review video, we were skeptical of the quality of product we were expecting to see. Good news. We were wrong, and the top videos are pretty darn good.
The top prize has been awarded to Clark Olson for a very funny critique of the 2000 Corolla with actual production-quality video work. In second place was Joel Moss Levinson, who managed to crack us up with a very clever rap featuring a somewhat problematic 2001 Volkswagen Passat. Seriously, it's pretty hilarious and is jam-packed with actual insight. In third place was an also entertaining take on the 2004 Subaru Forester by Patrick Latimer. Latimer sounded like a full-on auto enthusiast with 0-60 times and a very valid mention of the value of rowing one's own gears.
The winner was rewarded with $10,000 in cold, hard cash and a trip to sunny California for a video shoot with the KBB video crew. Second prize netted $5,000 and the third place winner received $1,000. Nicely done fellas. Hit the jump to watch the videos for yourself, and chime in via the post-jump poll to tell us if KBB correctly numbered the top three.
Volkswagen NCC patents - Click above for high-res image gallery
Take a look at what Carscoop's managed to dig up. It seems Volkswagen's been busy securing patents for its New Compact Coupe. Do these filings mean Volkswagen is seriously considering the addition of a Jetta Coupe to the lineup? Probably. After all, the coupe concept VW teased us all with last winter looked very production-ready, and it was quite well-received.
The images here show that the car has evolved somewhat since we last saw it at the Detroit Auto Show. There's now a traditional-style grille and exhaust, indicating that gas and diesel iterations are obviously in the works for the launch. If and when we'll see a hybrid version in keeping with the Detroit NCC concept remains to be seen. So, keep your fingers crossed that these patents foreshadow a classy little coupe from VW. This is a sharp-looking ride, and since it's larger than the Scirocco, it just might find an audience here in the land of the free.
While the latter years of the Dakar rally (when it was actually held in Dakar) may have belonged to the Mitsubishi Pajero, in the past two years since the premiere rally-raid event was moved from its namesake in North Africa to South America, Volkswagen has dominated with its Race Touareg. But if the German automaker hopes to make it a hat-trick, warned their winning driver Carlos Sainz (a two-time World Rally Champion to boot), they'd need a significantly improved vehicle.
Our spy photographers caught a glimpse of the new Race Touareg undergoing testing in the Alps last month, and although they've only released this singulae teaser image, Volkswagen has now confirmed the vehicle's development.
Dubbed (predictably enough) the Race Touareg 3, the new rally-raid machine closely follows the mechanical formula laid out by the victorious Race Touareg 2, but will sport some vital improvements. These will principally center around the aerodynamics, picking up design cues from the new production Touareg 2 along the way.
Desert testing is slated to commence later this month in Morocco, after which the Race Touareg 3 will endure its first real trial by fire in campaigning the Silk Way Rally across Russia in September before hitting the Dakar Rally next January. Official press release after the jump.
Porsche's integration into the Volkswagen Group has already and will undoubtedly continue to see increased cooperation between the allied German automakers in a number of arenas, from platforms and engines to production methods and technology. And let's not forget personnel, as evidenced by the latest shift in top management announced by Porsche and Volkswagen.
Effective October 1, Porsche's current chief executive Michael Macht will move to Volkswagen's management board to oversee production for the entire group. In his place, Matthias Müller - pictured right, a 33-year veteran of the VW Group and currently head of product planning - will take the reins as chairman of Porsche's board of management.
Volkswagen AG has also created a new board to supervise the company's various commercial truck divisions, which will be chaired by Prof. Dr. Jochem Heizmann, who currently holds the production portfolio that departing Porsche chairman Michael Macht will now be assuming. Got that all straight? You can read more in the press releases from both Volkswagen and Porsche after the jump.
2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition - Click above for high-res image gallery
Since we took delivery of our 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition - henceforth know as the Jetta TDI Cup, for the sake of brevity - we've managed to rack up a little over 1,100 miles on our long-term Salsa Red tester.
We've bounced around the Bay Area, made it out to the coast, logged several trips into San Francisco and made the trek to Infineon raceway. In the process, we've experienced the normal post-delivery phases: honeymoon, discovery and finally, annoyance. On the whole, however, the Jetta TDI Cup has proven to be a perfectly balanced package, with a smattering of tech-rich amenities and a surprisingly sporty demeanor - diesel or not.
We mentioned in our review that the Jetta's offers one of the best tillers in the compact sports sedan segment. The electric power assist steering feels like it's been slightly tweaked compared to past Jetta models we've driven, although the 18-inch wheel package is surely helping the matter. While it's not as communicative as the GTI's, you get a good sense of what the tires are doing both on-center and while loaded up, and the rate of return when powering around corners is perfectly matched to the 236 pound-feet of torque being channeled to the front wheels. Our only gripe remains the number of buttonson the wheel and the placement of the paddle-shifters. Read on to see what we mean.
Volkswagen E-Up! Concept - Click above for high-res image gallery
According to the scribes at Automobile Magazine, Volkswagen isn't planning to offer its diminutive Up! city car here in the United States. Boo! Interestingly enough, though, the electric version, imaginatively known as the E-Up!, is said to be earmarked for select U.S. markets.
What those U.S. markets may be is unknown, but we'd imagine it would be something like the five markets where Nissan plans to initially offer its Leaf Stateside... and you can bet Southern California (as always) will be on the list.
Last we heard, the E-Up! being developed for America wold likely be a bit larger than the model sold overseas and wouldn't be offered for sale for another few years. Sure, you may want your zero-emissions goodness earlier than that, but we can stand to wait a little while longer for the "Beetle of the 21st Century," right?
