Volkswagen has been continuing its development of the Polo R WRC on the sunny Spanish tarmac. This video was filmed recently and shows Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia having what seems to be a damn good time. Empty roads, no pressure of competition, just going as fast as you damn well can. Our last update [...]

Incoming Volkswagen Motorsport boss Jost Capito has quickly earned his stripes by becoming the latest VW executive to declare the company has no interest in Formula One. Instead, the German giant will focus its attention on its Polo R WRC program, due to start competing in 2013. Even a radical change to F1′s regulations in [...]

A favourable response to the buggy up! and cross up! concepts has encouraged Volkswagen to seriously consider adding a crossover variant to its up! range, German newspaper Handelsblatt reports. The up! is built at Volkswagen’s Bratislava plant in Slovakia and manager Albrecht Reimold says the up! was designed to carry a range of different models. [...]

We know the next-generation Golf will debut at the Paris Motor Show, starting in September this year. We know it will be built on the MQB platform. But we don’t really know what it will look like. Well, except that it will be a familiar progression in line with the last 38 years of Golf [...]

Current Ford WRC driver Jari-Matti Latvala could be driving for Volkswagen in 2013. Latvala’s manager, Timo Jouhki, confirmed meeting with Volkswagen saying: “I had a positive meeting with Kris Nissen and Carlos Sainz, who seem to have a good team with the right people and really interesting technical details on the car.” The 27-year-old Finn [...]

The nifty little Volkswagen up! has won many fans since it was first announced and it can now add the judges from the World Car Awards after it was named the 2012 World Car of the Year. Volkswagen can proudly place the trophy alongside the WCOTY titles handed to the Golf VI (2009) and Polo [...]

One of the main improvements for the upcoming Volkswagen Golf VII GTI is a mechanical limited-slip diff, Car magazine reports. That follows news the Mk7 GTI is likely to make the most of its new MQB platform and weigh up to 100kg less compared to the current 1360kg weight Mk6 GTI (1380kg with DSG). A [...]

Word has come through via Wards Auto that Volkswagen will build the new Porsche Boxster. Don’t worry, it’s not a rehash of the 914 collaboration, rather a development of a previous arrangement that Porsche used to have with Finland-based Valmet Automotive. Porsche will still concentrate Boxster production at its main Zuffenhausen plant, but any overflow [...]

Here’s the second and final part of our 2012 Geneva Motor Show photo gallery, featuring manufacturers from L–Z (well V actually). Highlights include the Aventador J pictured above along with a reappearance of the stylish Mazda Takeri concept. The awesome Pagani Huayra is also on show, check the raw carbon fibre model, it looks sublime. [...]

Have you ever thought you couldn’t buy a Volkswagen Amarok because it didn’t suit your freestyle kayaking lifestyle? If you said yes, then you’re in luck, because VW has come up with a concept model just for you. Dr Wolfgang Schreiber, Head of Development at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, explains, “We are using this extreme concept [...]

Here at AUSmotive we’ve never really understood why manufacturers indulge their customers by releasing chop-top versions of performance models. With the Golf GTI Cabriolet at least there is some old skool heritage there from on the Mk1 GTI Cabriolet. The same questions apply to the numerous iterations of BMW M3 convertible and, equally, the B7 [...]

Here is the “new” Volkswagen Cross Coupé. If you think you’ve seen something like this before, well, you have, last December. Back then the Cross Coupé on display in Tokyo was a petrol-electric hybrid. But now, VW has ripped out the TSI engine and plonked in a TDI, coupled it to the electric motors and, [...]

Sebastien Ogier and Carlos Sainz have been busy in Spain recently continuing the development of the Polo R WRC. Volkswagen will start racing the Polo in the WRC from next year and plan to hit the ground running. Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen explains, “Around 70 per cent of the WRC consists of gravel tracks, [...]

Volkswagen’s GTI badge has enjoyed a renaissance of late, thanks largely to the exploits of the Mk5 Golf GTI. The subsequent and still current Mk6 Golf GTI has maintained the momentum with poise and class, as well. So what of its new baby brother, the Polo GTI, can it live up to the renewed heritage [...]

For the first time since the Mk1 GTI, Volkswagen is set to release a new Golf GTI Cabriolet, Auto Express reports. The reveal is expected to take place at next month’s Geneva Motor Show and will be one of the last new launches on the Mk6 platform, before the Mk7 debuts at Paris in September. [...]