Martin Winterkorn has only one aim: he wants Volkswagen to be one of the top selling carmakers worldwide. And every single model is important to achieve this ambitious target.

The Volkswagen New Beetle is nowadays a secondary model in the Volkswagen range so it will be replaced by an all-new car in 2012 in order to boost sales.

The 2012 New Beetle, as anticipated in this rendering from Auto Motor und Sport, will feature a new look, closely inspired by the previous model. The most notable differences are in the front air intake, that is now similar to the one on the Volkswagen Up! concept, and in the new LED front lamps.

The most important innovations, however, will be under the hood: the next-gen New Beetle, that will be built on the Golf VI platform and will feature the newest FSI, TSI and TDI engines made in Wolfsburg, giving a much needed breath of fresh air to the technical specs of the old model. We can also expect to see the excellent DSG dual-clutch gearbox on the 2012 New Beetle.

Continue reading: New Volkswagen New Beetle coming out in 2012

Recently, both Audi and BMW have shown their interest to produce small cars, even though their model range is made of luxury sedans, big SUVs and fast supercars.

Audi showed last week the Metroproject quattro at the Tokyo Motor Show, a concept car that foreshadows the looks of the next Audi A1. It will arrive on the market in late 2009 and its rivals will be cars such as the Mini Cooper or the future BMW supermini. The three-door variant is likely going to be followed by a five-door version and a convertible one.

Motor Authority published these two renderings in which the cabrio and 5-door variants keep many of the concept’s details, such as the aluminium arches and the LED headlights. The 18″ alloy wheels are unlikely to be kept for the production version.

Continue reading: Audi A1 cabriolet and five-door: first renderings

Volkswagen is bringing to market a new version of its 1.4 TSI engine and a 7-speed DSG gearbox.

The new 4-cylinder gasoline engine is going to be called 1.4 TSI despite not being a twin-charger engine: in the 122 ps power-step it’s going to have only a turbo-charger (losing the supercharger). Torque is going to be a healthy 200 Nm. This engine is probably going to be used on most of the low-to-mid end of the Volkswagen model range.

The second novelty is a new version of the DSG gearbox (double clutch robotized transmission). This new gearbox will have seven speeds, can be coupled with engines with torque up to 250 Nm and the double clutch will no longer be immersed in oil as in the current DSG and, according to VW, it’s going to be particularly good for fuel economy: a Golf with the new 1.4 TSI and the new 7-speed DSG will have an average fuel consumption of 5.9 liters/100 km.

Via | Auto Motor und Sport

Continue reading: New 1.4 TSI engine and 7-speed DSG gearbox from VW