Volkswagen has announced that its popular Bulli and Bluesport concepts will remain on the drawing board despite overwhelming calls from the public to bring them into production. The company’s XL1 will, however, be built for public consumption.
Rumours of production runs of both the Bulli, a spiritual successor to the original Kombi, and the BlueSport roadster have been ebbing and flowing across the ‘net for some time, but it now appears that they’ve both been shelved…again.
Volkswagen’s head of R&D Ulrich Hackenburg, who recently dispelled rumours of the BlueSport project’s demise, has now done a 180 and stated that the firm could find neither a business case nor a market for such a model. Even so, Hackenberg was quick to point out that the BlueSport project isn’t dead in the water, but merely suspended until market conditions are more favourable. This may sound like a stalling tactic, and you’d be right in assuming so – Hackenberg knows that BlueSport hasn’t met with universal approval from members of the VW board, so introducing it to an unfavourable market could see the axe fall on the project prematurely.
Hackenburg also stuck a fork in any rumours that the Bulli concept will reach production due to a lack demand – something we find a little hard to believe owing to both the Kombi’s cult status and the firm’s apparent plans to introduce a compact MPV model.
Volkswagen has, however, given its bizarre XL1 eco-car the go-ahead for limited-run production. The aerodynamic two-seater is powered by a diesel-electric hybrid powertrain and is capable of returning an combined fuel consumption figure of just 0,9 L/100 km.
