Karmann SUC concept car: First Look

Motoring Channel Staff - 15/9/2005

Retractable hardtops from all the major automakers are sparking increased demand, while buyers for the sport utility vehicle (SUV) are also still flocking to dealerships right across the planet.

With the Sport Utility Cabrio, or SUC (no jokes, please), Wilhelm Karmann GmbH and ZF Friedrichshafen AG presented a road ready concept car at this year's Frankfurt motor show, which unites the abilities of the booming lifestyle vehicles and creates a new vehicle niche with a promising future.

The cabrio specialists from Osnabrück attached a soft top with show roof to the roomy SUV and combined it with a separate glass rear window, while ZF Friedrichshafen contributed an innovative chassis system.

"With the SUC we show what we can do. Of course, individual elements can also be transferred to other vehicle concepts," says Ronald Wellmann the SUC project manager at Karmann. However, in this case no OEM customers instructions had to be taken into consideration and designers and engineers exploited this freedom.

Unique technical features include doors opening in the opposite direction with an adaptive sealing system, the rear window that is integrated into the tailgate, the large opening angle of the side and rear doors as much as to 90 degrees and horizontally operable rear compartment door handles.

The main attraction is the cover and soft top and storage area design because the soft top spans the SUV’s occupant and luggage compartments. Because the rear window is not integrated into the soft top, it’s comfortable to load luggage when the roof is open.

Sitting on gigantic 22-inch wheels that combine with the electronic CDC (Continuous Damping Control), the Karmann SUC concept is designed to offer a sporting drive. Furthermore, with by networking various control elements such as ESP, ABS or CDC it results in more driving comfort and a higher level of on road safety.

For the Sport Utility Cabrio Karmann and ZF believe the largest sales potential is in Western Europe and the USA. According to one study, the group says that sales could reach up to 180,000 units annually between 2009 and 2015.

In order to satisfy crash safety requirements the body of the Sport Utility Cabrio had to be additionally reinforced. The existing floor of the basic vehicle offered the possibility to be reinforced with a second floor plate. The newly designed sandwich structure provided the necessary rigidity for the four-door Convertible. However, the locking systems were integrated into the shortened B-column to deflect the resulting forces in case of a side crash.