VW Group baby sports car

The Volkswagen Group’s on-again, off-again baby sports car is close to being either back on again or utterly dead, sources have revealed.

First hinted at with the VW BlueSport concept car of 2009, the small sports car architecture was then seen beneath the Audi e-tron in the same year, but it’s future has been under internal debate ever since.

Now, however, sources insist the light weight, mid-engined, rear-drive architecture has finally negotiated its way out of the clutches of the ubiquitous front-drive, VW Group MQB small-car platform.

The so-called MRS (Mid-Rear Sports) architecture, also known as 9X1 inside the VW Group, was conceived to be the basis of a series of affordable small sports cars from Porsche and Audi as well as Volkswagen.

Porsche and Audi are both said to be deep into development of their MRS cars, with Porsche particularly keen to have a sub-Boxster entrant and Audi said to be particularly unwilling to let them have the market to themselves.

Both companies could have the convertible versions of their MRS sports cars on sale by 2014, according to sources, while the critical Volkswagen-branded machine could arrive as much as two years later.

Yet, the stumbling block to the production is Volkswagen. VW technical boss, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, pronounced at last month’s Geneva Motor Show that there were no technical issues stopping the MRS reaching production, which just left financial issues.

“If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t bet on Volkswagen doing a car off it,” one highly placed source said. “There is no proven business case for it and without a Volkswagen version, the other ones will never happen,” he insisted.

“Can the Volkswagen badge command the premium price it would need to command to justify building it? We know Audi and Porsche can, but we’re not sure Volkswagen can.”
 
Even though the Volkswagen boffins are paying close attention to the rave reviews Toyota and Subaru are receiving for their FT-86/0846 twins, with a simplified, light weight, rear-drive chassis aimed at driving purity, insiders say they are not convinced. In particular, the mid-engined layout would make their car considerably more expensive to build than the Toybaru twins and it would end up at a price beyond even the Audi TT.

For all that, Porsche is desperate to burst out of the blocks with their version of the car, said to be powered by a flat-four derived from the Boxster’s new six-cylinder powerplant.

With the Cayman and Boxster twins growing in proportion to something resembling the original 911, Porsche insiders feel the time is right to give its sports-car lineup a more accessible entry model. Some Porsche insiders see the model as a potential successor to the 356, albeit some decades removed.

Like the Boxster before it, the two-seater will eventually arrive as both a convertible and a coupe, though unlike the Boxster/Cayman twins, the Coupe is intended to be the cheapest of the family.

Audi has fiddled around the edges of the MRS before, with the hybrid steel-and-aluminium spaceframe architecture sitting beneath its e-tron concept car from the 2010 Detroit Motor Show.

Whereas Porsche is keen to maintain its horizontally opposed engine strategy with its baby sports car, Audi is more likely to turn one of its in-line four-cylinder TFSI engines over on to its side and slide it in just behind the rear seats.

The Ingolstadt premium outfit is also keen to stuff the chassis full of electric- and hybrid-drive pieces so it can use its higher pricing structure to introduce its customers to new technologies without losing money.

But all of these plans will be wasted if Volkswagen doesn’t climb on board. Right now, sources say, it’s not looking good.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...