Skip to main content

It Can Be Any Thing: VW Looks at Back Catalog for EV Inspiration

With the electric MEB platform essentially being a skateboard onto which Volkswagen can lay any body, designers in Wolfsburg are looking back through the ages for inspiration for the next EV concept. The latest contenders? The Thing and the dune buggy.

That’s what brand boss Herbert Diess told Car and Driver recently.

“We have so many emotional concepts,” said Diess. “I don’t know if you remember the Kübelwagen. This Thing is a nice car. Then there are all the buggies, the kit cars.”

Diess’s comments on the heels of the wildly popular I.D. Buzz, which first debuted as a concept in Detroit early this year. As with many other modern microbus concepts, opinion was divided as to whether or not it would ever become a reality. Its unexpected popularity meant that VW basically had no choice but to put it into production, but at Monterey Car Week this summer, VW announced that it would go into production.

idbuzz1c

Now, it seems that VW has gotten a taste for nostalgia and hopes to create the Buzz’s buzz all over again. But rather than searching the back catalog for elegant coupes like the Karmann Ghia, VW has gone for more utilitarian cars.

“If we wanted to do a Beetle electrically, it would be much better than the current car,” said Diess. “Much closer to the history of the Beetle. [But] I think the Microbus is a much better emotional concept for the brand.”

So don’t expect to see an electric Beetle in the near future, though.

“We have so many exciting concepts in our history that we don’t have to do a Beetle,” Diess told Car and Driver. “The next decision on the electric cars will be, ‘What kind of emotional concepts do we need?’ [A decision] might happen next year. This Beetle won’t go electric; the next one might, if there is a next one. We have a good chance on the electric side to do derivatives and emotional derivatives.”

While an electric dune buggy makes a certain amount of sense–you don’t need to worry about filtering out dust, after all–we have to admit that even we’re a little mystified by the fact that the 181 was the first thing VW thought of, though ICON motors did prove that the idea works.

[source: Car and Driver]

The post It Can Be Any Thing: VW Looks at Back Catalog for EV Inspiration appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2y3tbHi
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...
Post a Comment
Read more

Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway

Waterfest 24 will be held at Atco Dragway, in Atco, New Jersey. The summer event will take place at its new venue on July 21 and 22. Long held in Englishtown, New Jersey, the festival has been such a large part of the VW scene that the latest iteration of the Golf even comes with optional “Englishtown” wheels . The new venue, however, is an NHRA drag track a scant 52 miles southwest of Englishtown. The ¼ mile drag track opened in 1960, which makes it the oldest drag strip in New Jersey. The announcement came today on a social media post that announced the new location. Waterfest is North America’s largest VW/Audi show. As many 20,000 people show up for the annual show, making the second largest show in the world—with Worthersee being number one. 2018 will be Waterfest’s 24 th year in existence. The post Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2GQjkuc via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more

European Passat GTE launches as Saloon and Variant

Volkswagen continues e-motoring offensive with plug-in hybrid Passat GTE delivers 218 PS and travels up to 50 kilometres on all-electric power First Volkswagen plug-in hybrid in the high-volume segment of large family cars The Volkswagen continues to electrify! Following the Golf GTE*, comes the next high-volume model with a plug-in drive system: this time the German carmaker is electrifying the new Passat GTE. Its launch marks the debut of a new generation of business and family cars – zero-emission vehicle and long-distance touring car all in one. A Volkswagen that combines the present and the future. A car that boasts not only one of the most progressive drive systems of our time, but also an array of innovative assistance and infotainment systems that is ground-breaking in the segment of large family cars. With superb system output of 160 kW / 218 PS, frugal NEDC consumption of just 1.6 l/100 km and 12.2 kWh/100 km (Variant: 12.4 kWh) and an all-electric range of up to 50 k...
Post a Comment
Read more