Volkswagen upsizes its people's car concept
Small, economical and spacious enough for four adults and groceries -- VW may have come up with a worthy successor to the original BeetleVolkswagen wowed the automotive world with the debut of the up! concept just six weeks ago, but the German carmaker has already followed up with the stretched 'space up!' concept at the Tokyo show.
"The world premiere of the up! at the IAA in Frankfurt served as an initial test to see how the concept of our New Small Family would be received in Europe. And the results of this test were more than favourable," says VW’s head of technical development, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg.
Judging by the milling throngs of journos crowding the car at the Tokyo show, it's fair to say the space up! has generated just as much hype as the Frankfurt concept.
Although stretching just 3.68m long and 1.63m wide, the space up! is remarkably spacious, and there's enough legroom in the back to comfortably accommodate two adults (but I'm only 1.72m tall, and my assessment is obviously based on this fact).
The space up! is exactly 23cm longer than the up! shown at Frankfurt and its wheelbase is stretched accordingly to 2.56m. Measuring 1.54m at its highest point, space up! is also four centimeters taller than the up! concept.
In contrast to the two-door up!, the space up! has four doors (access to the rear seats is via suicide doors). Well, actually there are six doors in total if you count the two-part rear door.
The luggage bay can accommodate 220 litres, but this can be extended to 1005 litres if the passenger seats are folded (they can also be removed altogether).
The concept's innovative cockpit layout enables the driver to control many functions via a touch-screen with 3D graphics and proximity sensors
As per the Frankfurt concept (and virtually mimicking the original Beetle), the space up!'s powertrain is housed under the rear seat, and Volkswagen's boffins say this is the optimum layout in terms of space efficiency -- it's more efficient than even a front-engine/front-drive configuration.
Visually, the space up! carries over the theme of the Frankfurt concept, but its proportions are obviously altered by the dimensional stretch. It's overall appeal remains undiminished, though.
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