VW UP

[jonah35]

Found myself at the vw garage today and whilst waiting did the inevitable and sat in all the cars.

Out of them all, including the golf R and so on I found myself drawn to the VW UP.

It looked small, nimble, had a proper handbrake, no nonsense interior and reminded me of a hot hatch from days gone by. That got me thinking. An UP GTi with flared arches and centre exit twin exhaust and little red stripe with say a 200bhp engine would be a hoot. A modern 205 gti, Lupo GTi etc.

Is this in the pipeline?

[danp]

An Up GT concept was shown (125bhp iirc) but never made production unfortunately.

[mattcov]

If there was a version of the Up/Mii/Citigo like this I'd have one now. I suspect there never will be because they know they wont be able to milk people and no one would buy Polo GTIs.

[nickfrog]

jonah35 said:

It looked small, nimble, had a proper handbrake, no nonsense interior and reminded me of a hot hatch from days gone by.

It's called a Suzuki Swift Sport - not even a turbo in sight. It's a brilliant car. And reliable. And very cheap. And very well equipped.

[mattcov]

nickfrog said:

It's called a Suzuki Swift Sport - not even a turbo in sight. It's a brilliant car. And reliable. And very cheap. And very well equipped.

Possibly, but what we want is the lower weight and 150+ bhp (even if turbo/supercharged is required)

[daydotz]

VW are going to fit the polo with a 1.0 TSI(to replace the 1.2 TSI) so it may end up in the up

[anonymous-user]

10 second google search :-
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/new-cars/2014-01/...

[kambites]

mattcov said:

nickfrog said:

It's called a Suzuki Swift Sport - not even a turbo in sight. It's a brilliant car. And reliable. And very cheap. And very well equipped.

Possibly, but what we want is the lower weight and 150+ bhp (even if turbo/supercharged is required)

134bhp sounds fine for a fun hatch weighing a tonne to me.

[nickfrog]

mattcov said:

Possibly, but what we want is the lower weight and 150+ bhp (even if turbo/supercharged is required)

If you add those bits, you add weight (turbo, plumbing, intercooler etc etc). If you add weight you need bigger brakes. To accomodate bigger brakes, you need bigger wheels, which require bigger tyres. To cope with the resulting higher unsprung weight you need stronger suspension components.

And you end up with a 1200kgs car that is slower than the lesser power 1000kgs car, particularly in terms of lateral grip and because of the added secondary inertia of the heavier wheels/discs/tyres.

[kathyp]

kambites said:

134bhp sounds fine for a fun hatch weighing a tonne to me.

problem is, the swift sport feels slow. which is OK, except that its using as much fuel and tax of 200bhp machines. Between the up and swift sport I would honestly choose the up because the swift sport is a misnomer if you want a fast car. And if you want a fun one then the up would do the same thing and with zero tax and nearly twice the economy.

I speak as someone who had several long test drives in the Suzuki. Just don't see the point of it. Not fast, but not economical either.

Edited by kathyp on Monday 15th September 23:00