2007 Volkswagen Up! Concept Review

Specifications

You know, I think Volkswagen’s onto something here. After decades of producing well-made front-drive, front-engine small cars like the Rabbit, Golf and Jetta, it looks as German brand is going back to its roots in more ways than just engine placement … its next city car will also be cheap to build and buy.

Yes, the all-new up! Concept, a forerunner to something expected to be very similar in production trim, puts its tiny little engine over the rear axle, not unlike the car that made VW a household name back in the ’50s and ’60s and simultaneously transformed the words Beetle and Bug from hideous insects into synonyms for cute and cuddly.

The up! might not be as transformational to its small car segment as the Beetle was in a post-war Europe on the rebuild and a buoyant North American economy looking for another car to fill its double garages, but to Volkswagen’s fortunes it could prove critical. The new CEO of VW America, Stefan Jacoby, plans to expand North American sales from 235,140 units in 2006 to a stellar 800,000 by 2018. In emerging markets, such as India and China a new city car could achieve even greater impact, especially considering VW is on target for a 12 percent gain over 2006 sales to more than 800,000 units in 2007.

The tiny, 135.8-inch, rear-engine, rear-wheel drive up! can seat up to four passengers comfortably, something I experienced personally during a pre-launch soirée on the eve of the Frankfurt auto show. It’s also a really nicely laid out interior, with attractive, high-quality surfaces and a nice Beetle-esque touch, body color panels inside. Some untraditional components include an 8-inch LCD display in place of the instrument cluster, which incorporates all of the usual information as well as a navigation system and a carbon dioxide meter.

There’s also no fixed center stack in the up!, but in its place a 7-inch touchscreen interface for adjusting heat, air conditioning and airflow, plus the radio controls. The touchscreen boasts proximity sensors that react to hand movements in order to make finger prints a thing of the past, important as such smudges can detract from a touchscreen’s legibility when in direct sunlight. Designed to be user-friendly first and foremost, the interface menus are laid out in a new “carousel” format and split into function and entertainment sections. The system is so easy to use that Apple fans are sure it was designed by the alternative PC maker, and with Microsoft now working with Ford in bringing its Sync system to market, a deal with Apple and VW only makes sense. Though it hasn’t been confirmed, the system has been rumored to be designed by Apple. Truly, you couldn’t find two company’s more ideally suited to cross branding.

Reminding me of an Audi 100 LS I once owned back in my teens that had all but its driver’s seat removed so that I didn’t have to drive everyone home from school (I found out after the fact that more could fit inside without seats and therefore abandoned my somewhat selfish plan), each of the up!’s four seats (except the driver’s) can be ousted in order to maximize cargo space. Still, even with all of the seats in place, as I experienced, the up! is open and airy thanks to a width of 66.1 inches and a significant glass to metal ratio, with a fair bit of legroom front and rear due to a surprisingly long wheelbase. And those seats were inspired by air mattresses, incidentally, and despite looking ultimately simple in construction can be inflated or deflated to meet the size and shape of each occupant for a truly ergonomic fit. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I found them extremely comfortable.

Interestingly, the up!’s roomy interior hasn’t translated into a boring, tall-wagon exterior shape. Rather, Walter De’Silva, Volkswagen’s head of design was able to pen something cute and loveable, much along the same theme as Fiat’s award-winning 500.

“The up! is not a car whose form will become obsolete within a very brief period of time. It shines in its cleverness and yet is made with loving care. And so the up! is a clear and strong statement for future Volkswagen design,” commented De’Silva.

The headlamp clusters are six-sided and angular, with the VW logo at center. The front and rear bumpers feature D-shaped intakes, which give the car a happy, good natured appearance. And a cheerful countenance is exactly what the up! needs to attract its youthful target buyer, still filled with positive ambition and hope for the future … not that we middle-aged folks aren’t … ahem.

Besides its attractive qualities and optimization for interior space, this design should also give the up! an advantage with frontal crash tests and pedestrian impact protection, as it enjoys a reasonably large frontal absorption area.

During its Frankfurt introduction Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn commented that he believes “…it WILL be a very, very successful car…” when it arrives on the market, leading me to believe it’s on its way to production. The next day, during the show intro, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member with Responsibility for Technical Development, wasn’t quite so forthcoming, saying that “…the response of IAA visitors will be a decisive test to determine whether the concept has the same kind of potential possessed by the Beetle at one time or by the Golf today.” Still, VW is very committed to the concept, a fact that has become even more evident since this compact version arrived in late September. VW showed the space up! version in Tokyo last month, and the fuel cell powered space up! blue in Los Angeles just last week, not only building on its efficient rear-engine packaging with regards to size and functionality, but also making clear that the up! can be powered by various engine types.

With this smallest up!, Volkswagen isn’t saying whether it is gasoline or diesel powered, but we are told it can fit a turbocharged two- or a three-cylinder engine capable of a projected 67 mpg city/highway combined fuel economy rating, which would make it a hit just about anywhere.

Other efficiencies are skewed more toward production, such as the way that all rear end electronics, from the LED taillights to the rear wiper and rooftop spoiler are built into the glass hatch, reducing steps in the build process. Even the massive VW logo is etched into the glass, rather than the traditional chrome-plated one.

As cool as it is, can the up! be VW’s next Beetle? In an age focused on $100 barrels of oil, and oil dependency in general, even petroleum addicts are questioning their consumption levels, which means that going green is becoming mainstream. Certainly the timing is ripe, but where the original Beetle had wide-open virgin markets ready to buy anything affordable, the new up! faces increasing competition from a very savvy global industry. Then again, it’s also now a global marketplace with more new car buyers than ever before. The reality is that VW needs a new global small car and the up! is the best thing we’ve seen from them in decades. If they don’t build it, along with the space up!, they’d better have something even more intriguing in the pipeline.