Volkswagen Concept A: First Look

Motoring Channel Staff - 20/Feb/2006

Volkswagen's showpiece concept car, making its official debut in Berlin and followed by an appearance at the annual Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland, is being touted as the child of a new era.

With a simple name - it's called the Concept A - and an unconventional design, VW claims that the vehicle is a avant-garde cross between the sports cars and SUV’s of tomorrow. The design is initially hard to swallow, but this is the design of a car of tomorrow, at which point in time tastes may have changed dramatically. 

With short front and rear overhangs, a long bonnet and coupe-like roof line, the concept car exhibits a combination of design styles - coupe, SUV, sports car - and sits on large 20-inch alloy rims with super-wide 295/40 ZR20 aspect ratio tyres within tastefully pumped wheel arches, giving the Concept A just enough eye candy to pique the interest of a variety of show goers.

The all-wheel drive concept car is powered by a 1.4-litre Twincharger (TSI) gasoline engine, which according to Volkswagen is designed to marry the best of both worlds: “maximum driving pleasure, minimum consumption”. It develops 110kW (150hp).

Power reaches the wheels via a 6-gear transmission and VW's 4MOTION all-wheel drive system. Volkswagen has also hinted that future production versions of a small-ish AWD crossover vehicle based on the Concept A could include turbo diesel direct injection (TDI) engines, and even the Golf GTI's 147 kW (200hp) FSI motor got a mention.

Measuring 4.35 metres long, 1.85 metres wide and 1.55 metres high, Volkswagen explains the front end design of the Concept A shows a new evolutionary step in Volkswagen’s crest radiator grille. The 'V' theme incorporates the grille as an integral element in the sculpture of the front end, while the lower sections see the grille disappear behind a strong crossbeam. The slightly slanted headlights are stylised takes on the design of the VW Passat's, where the projector lenses are replaced by futuristic-looking LEDs, giving the front end a decidedly feline appearance; VW says that it resembles a Cheetah.

As a side note, the German automotive giant has made suggestions that the front end offers an early look at its new SUV model that would slot into the VW line-up below the Touareg.

The roof rises gently over the low and steep front windscreen, where the silver A-pillars give the car a toyish kind of look, while the absence of a B-pillar and the inclusion of suicide (barn-style) rear doors lend the exterior a perplexing-yet-intriguing profile, and also ensure that ingress and egress is a cake walk. The door handles for both front and rear doors also appear as one object, giving the car a distinctly coupe-ish look, finished off with aGlacier metallic paint scheme.

At the rear, the Concept A is perhaps more recognisable as vehicle from the production lines at Volkswagen, featuring typical VW brake light elements - the circle and the trapeze. Other rear end features include twin round chrome exhaust pipes and the hatch-back style tailgate, which can be opened independently in two parts, providing the rear with a more versatile and easily accessible loading space.

With its movable soft-top roof, the Concept A represents a crossover that defies all others, with an interior befitting a vehicle with such an outlandish goal. Volkswagen explains there are four bucket seats with optimum ergonomic features, intersected by a cockpit and central console that are free of the compromises of a forced connection that most modern cars are faced with.

One of the more dominant design elements of the interior are the climate control air vents, while the driver is faced with a digital speedometer behind the multi-function steering wheel, to the right of which sits a large Multi-Media-Interface for browsing the web and reading Web Wombat's deliciously dry reports.

All told, the Concept A is truly breakout design, and one that VW says provides clues as to its compact SUV design that is destined for production before the end of the decade, combining the no compromise elegance of a sports car with the demonstrative robustness of an off road model.