Yesterday, VW India finally pulled the dust sheets off the new Jetta for the Indian market. The old Jetta was launched in India is early 2008 and always remained in the shadow of the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Chevy Cruze and its cousin sister Skoda Laura.
Unlike all these cars which had their own specific USP, the Jetta was a jack of some trades. So VW India decided to can the old model and bring the sixth generation Jetta in India.
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As Chevy’s Cruze and Toyota’s Corolla diesel’ mop up the D segment sedan market, a new contender is taking shape in the VW camp. VW India has started testing the 2012 VW Jetta in India. A member of the popular forum TeamBHP has snapped up pictures of the Jetta being tested at Lavasa in Maharashtra.
Earlier we reported that Volkswagen is planning to launch the Jetta in the second half of 2011. We guess the plan is to launch in the car during the festive season of Dussehra to gain maximum attention. So expect an August-September debut. As IAB reported two months ago, the Jetta will not have BlueMotion technology and will be offered with a petrol engine.
The new Jetta carries the same design language that we saw on the new Vento but is beefier and brawnier.
The pic shows that the model caught testing is a 2.0 TDI diesel engine producing 140 hp. It should be offered in both Automatic and Manual variants. We guess VW will launch the diesel variant first and follow it up with petrol (à la Passat).
What do you think should the price range be for the new Jetta to successfully compete against its rivals?
The world’s largest car manufacturer, Volkswagen, has unveiled the all new, next-generation version of its mid-size saloon, the Jetta. The new car features major revisions in design and styling as compared to its predecessor and draws a lot of inspiration for its looks from the NCC Concept Coupe which VW showcased at this year’s Detroit Motor Show. The new Jetta has adopted the Volkswagen family front-end look as seen on the new Polo, Golf, Touareg and Phaeton.
The new generation mk6 Golf has been on sale for quite a while, so it makes logical sense that the Jetta is in for a change as well, but what we see here might either be the mule for the next gen Jetta or just a facelift of the existing model.
