2005 Volkswagen Touareg V8 4x4 Leather Sunroof Nav 75k Texas Direct Auto on 2040-cars

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Volkswagen Cross Up! aimed at rugged lifestyle folks, complete with plastic cladding

If you thought there was nothing wrong with the Volkswagen Up! that a little body cladding wouldn't fix, you're in luck. VW has officially pulled the wraps off the production version of the Cross Up!, and its wheel arches and rocker panels are full of the black plastic cladding you've been yearning for.
In addition to the "particularly rugged design and tough, lifestyle qualities" that the cladding exudes, VeeDub has also seen fit to put its Cross Up! on a new set of 16-inch alloy wheels clad in 185/50-series tires. Inside, there are new kick plates to go along with a dash pad that can be had in red, black or silver.
All that cladding must equal additional off-road readiness, right? Well, sure... just so long as you're fine with the same 75-horsepower three-cylinder engine that all other Up! models also feature, along with a five-speed manual transmission sending power to the front wheels, again, just like all other Up! models. The Cross Up! appears to have a taller ride height than other models, but we haven't been able to find out what - if any - changes have been made.

VW readying new VR6 with forced induction

Volkswagen built a stonking, narrow-angle V6 in the 1980s and 1990s that was found in three different generations of the Golf (their performance iterations, obviously), three generations of the Passat, the New Beetle, the Corrado and the Touareg, among other VWs, a spate of Audis, Seats, a Skoda, and even the Porsche Cayenne. It was a sad day when it was announced that it'd be put out to pasture.
Rejoice, though, fans of the venerable VR6, because Volkswagen has a new, modern variant in the works that, according to AutoWeek, features direct injection and can easily be fitted with forced induction. In fact, AW mentions Volkswagen insiders that claim this unit will spawn a production version of the twin-turbo V6 shown on the Design Vision GTI from this year's Wörthersee festival. That unit produced an epic 503 horsepower and 413 pound-feet of torque.
Don't expect a production unit with that level of power (although it would make a hardy RS4 powerplant), though. In reality, AutoWeek is suspecting anywhere from 340 to 450 horsepower from the new mill. When it arrives at an undisclosed date in the future, it'll likely be found in the Passat and Passat CC as well as the production version of the CrossBlue.

VW budget sub-brand stuck in limbo over VW standards, costs

Reports in October 2012 claimed Volkswagen had begun investigating the creation of its own budget brand. This came after having failed to purchase Malaysian car company Proton or produce a meaningful partnership with Suzuki, and after watching Renault-Nissan make piles of euro on Dacia and plot the return of Datsun.
For VW, more important than the question of what to call it was how to build it profitably and in a way that didn't damage the VW brand. According to a report in Autocar, a satisfactory answer still hasn't been found. The hurdle is how to hit "'necessary' quality and safety levels" at the price points needed to make the venture worthwhile. At the time of the 2012 report, German outlet Der Spiegel said VW was trying to get prices down to 6,000 to 8,000 euro ($7,784 to $10,379 US), about two thousand to four thousand euro under the price of the VW Up and in line with the cost of a 6,790-euro Dacia Sandero in Germany.
In March 2013, VW announced, "We want to bring a true budget car to the market in China in the foreseeable future," the most concrete move in that direction after years of planning to make a decision. Working with local Chinese maker FAW, it was predicted that the vehicle in question would appear around 2016, but as of November last year a final vote on it needed to wait until this year because "We are still working on the cost side" and profit possibilities for a car that "has to be durable, it has to be precise, it has to be safe."