VW Scirocco, VW Scirocco, styling direction of Volkswagen
Volkswagen, Seat and Kia used the auto show to highlight the design directions their brands plan to take.
VW's Scirocco coupe highlights a fresh, friendlier look that will appear on future models.
Seat's Bocanegra concept showcases a new simple but sporty design language for the carmaker.
The front-end styling of the Kia Soul will be one of the key elements of a new face that Chief Design Officer Peter Schreyer plans for the Korean brand.
VW says the Scirocco's narrow double band across the grille will be used on other new models.
" It shows signs of the direction the brand is headed," Ulrich Hackenberg, VW brand's development head, said.
VW's group design head Walter de' Silva toned down the aggressive front end of the Iroc concept, which previewed the new Scirocco when it was unveiled at the 2006 Paris auto show.
De' Silva wants VW's future cars to have friendlier faces.
The first car fully styled by De' Silva will be a production version of the Up minicar.
The production Up is due to go on sale in 2010.
The Golf-based Scirocco will go on sale starting in August. The base price in Germany will be €21,750.
" I am sure we will create a segment with this car that others will join," Hackenberg said.
VW has not disclosed sales targets for the Scirocco but industry insiders say it plans to build 28,000 a year in its Setubal, Portugal, plant.
Seat opts for sporty, simple
The Seat Bocanegra's styling will appear on the new Ibiza and the brand's new upper-medium sedan, which is code-named the Bolero.
The Bocanegra is the first full design study done by Luc Donckerwolke, who took over Seat design from de' Silva in 2005.
Donckerwolke has kept many details from the de' Silva-designed Seat Altea and Leon cars.
" It was not easy to improve on de' Silva's work. But I tried to give the Bocanegra a more three-dimensional form," he said.
The fourth-generation Ibiza will be similar to the Bocanegra when it goes on sale as a five-door hatchback in June and three-door coupe in September. But the Ibiza will not have the concept's black grille, which may appear in Seat's high-performance Formula Racing or Cupra models.
Bocanegra is Spanish for " black mouth."
The new Ibiza will be the first Volkswagen group car to use the company's PQ25 platform. The platform is a development of VW's PQ24 platform and it will also underpin the new VW Polo, which goes on sale starting in 2009.
The Ibiza is Seat's top-selling car with European sales of 155,062 units out of the brand's total sales of 390,621 last year, according to market researcher JATO Dynamics.
SOURCE: Automotive News
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Print | posted on Friday, April 04, 2008 12:41 PM