Volkswagen’s new hatchback will be bigger than Polo – EXCLUSIVE

Volkswagen is planning at introducing the Polo GTi in India and this will be powered by a 1.

8-litre turbo petrol engine that will be producing about 168bhp of power and will be mated to a six-speed manual transmission. The new-generation Polo or the new premium hatchback from Volkswagen will be a lot more spacious than the currently sold Polo.

The competition is offering more space and this isn’t working well for the German brand as the space offering on the new Polo is a bit tight. The new hybrid platform that the German automaker is developing for the Indian car market, will be benchmarked against the Golf, however it will be a highly localised product that will be designed for developing markets. India will be the key export hub for Volkswagen, with its Chakan facility producing all the export products.

At the moment, Volkswagen brand is developing this new platform for a new hatchback, sedan and maybe even a compact SUV. These will be sold in India and other markets like Mexico, Brazil and maybe even Russia.

This new platform will churn out its first production ready model by 2017. Before that, Volkswagen will be launching four new products and refreshes. The new products include new compact sedan, Tiguan SUV, new-generation Passat and the Beetle.

The Beetle will be launched by November end and will be powered by a 1.

4-litre TSI engine that will churn about 120bhp of power and will come with a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. This is based on the MQB platform and will be a complete body unit import and priced at about INR 30 lakhs (on-road).