Volkswagen's Concept BlueSport went straight to clinics after it appeared at Detroit's Cobo Hall for the North American International Auto Show. VW chief Ulrich Hackenberg likened the car to the Mazda MX-5 Miata in price and necessary volume. It's a global car, he says. "And not just for one brand." A highly placed source in the VW Group design community told us the Audi version is already done. It's badged R1. Designers had a lot of freedom, says BlueSport designer Thomas lngenlath."lt's not like doing a new generation of Golf, which has to evolve. It's a new type of car for VW, with no predecessor." The big issue with a small roadster, he says, is to keep it low-slung, so it doesn't look like a tarted-up front-drive car. Getting a mid-engine layout, he adds, "made the job very tasty. We could work with good proportions. A production car could be made to look pretty much exactly like this, as similar as the first TT was to the TT concept."
展开▼
