It won’t be until late 2020/early 2021 before Volkswagen will have an all-new car for the Indian market. The first new product from Volkswagen under the India 2.0 strategy will be a Hyundai Creta-rivaling compact SUV. Until then, the German automaker will launch facelifted models of the Polo hatchback and the Vento sedan to keep buyers still interested. To that effect, the automaker will launch refreshed versions of the Polo and Vento and India. Both cars are expected to get significant cosmetic makeovers to allow them to motor on until 2020-21. This development was confirmed by Stephen Knapp, Director, Volkswagen India.
Here’s what he said.
We are working on, obviously, some changes in the appearance of the car. The changes brought with the next refresh will be “more in the lines of evolution, rather than in the lines revolution.
What this means is, the Volkswagen Polo and Vento will get stylistic revisions that continue to toe the design language that the cars currently have. The engines and transmissions may not get major upgrades and Volkswagen is likely to use the same crop of motors until 2020, when new emission norms under Bharat Stage 6 get implemented. Currently, there are 3 engines on offer on the Polo and Vento. The Polo gets 1 litre-3 cylinder naturally aspirated petrol, 1.2 litre turbocharged TSI petrol and 1.5 litre TDI turbocharged diesel engines. The Vento gets 1.6 litre-4 cylinder naturally aspirated petrol, 1.2 litre TSI turbocharged petrol and 1.5 litre TDI turbocharged diesel engines.
Both the Polo and Vento offer manual and automatic gearbox options. While the Polo’s 1.2 TSI motor gets a 7 speed twin clutch automatic gearbox, all other engine options use 5 speed manuals. In case of the Vento, the 1.2 TSI and 1.5 TDI engines use the 7 speed twin clutch DSG automatic gearbox while the other engines get a 5 speed manual. Apart from cosmetic changes, both the Polo and Vento are expected to get additional features. Both cars are already nearly 8 years old, and before they get replaced, are likely to be over 10 years old, making them the oldest cars in their respective segments. They’ve aged pretty gracefully though.
[“Source-cartoq”]
