Volkswagen's 4 trillion rupee investment to steal the crown of the world's biggest auto maker by 2018 does not account the cash allocated for the oceanic Chinese auto market. Volkswagen has multiple agreements with local auto companies and under these partnerships manufactures and retails different iterations of the Jetta and Passat. Volkswagen sells the Polo, CrossPolo, Golf, etc in the 20 million annual unit Chinese market and was seen testing the Vento in early 2011.
Come 2012 and yet another sedan will rise. Our friend Ashley from ChinaCarTimes writes that Volkswagen is planning to replace a pre-historic generation of the VW Jetta Passat, called Santana locally, operating as a cab in jam-packed Shanghai and Beijing roads with a compact sedan built on the MQB.
Internally called VW253CS, a sketch released on auto.163.com rides on the Vento. It could don the commercial name 'Santana NF' and arrive in three variants for the family car category and one variant for the taxi cab category. The 1.4 and 1.6 liter petrol engines from the Vento are expected to feature on the Santana NF.
Our guess is the Santana NF is sandwiched by the Vento and Golf. Volkswagen India will evaluate not only a sedan, but an SUV and MUV option for filling this space.
With every Volkswagen product aping one another, parts of the Volkswagen family appears as a zoom lens photography experiment. We cannot vouch for the artist drawing, but the recent trend of VW products following family look with utmost seriousness dilutes the surprise element on its future projects.
[Source - ChinaCarTimes.com]
