Speaking to Australian media at the launch of the facelifted Polo series in Germany, Volkswagen's product communications chief Moritz Silzer has said that the updated Polo GTI hot hatchback slated for later this year will get the optional manual transmission.
The pre-facelift Polo GTI is available with a 1.4-liter TSI engine (available on the Jetta petrol in India) matched to a seven-speed DSG (available on the Polo GT TSI in India). Silzer says the decision to reintroduce a manual option was driven by motoring enthusiast's desires.
Volkswagen brought the first installment of the Polo facelift series to the Geneva Motor Show in March. These included the Cross Polo, Polo BlueGT, Polo Bluemotion, Polo R Line and the standard Polo.
He confirmed that the hot hatch would receive a more powerful 192 hp engine (178 hp currently) but would not say if it would be a tweaked version of the same 1.4L or the bigger 1.8L engine.
The six-speed manual gearbox - 1.4 L TSI combo is available on the Indian spec Jetta. However, there appears to be no plans to launch the Polo GTI in India. Expect the Polo facelift to get introduced in the early part of the second half of 2014 with a 1.5L four-cylinder diesel engine, while retaining the current petrol engine configurations.
(Pre-facelift Polo GTI images used in the story)
[Source - CarAdvice.com.au]
