The head of Volkswagen Group Africa has revealed when South Africa will get its first glimpse of the upcoming small SUV that’s set to be produced at the Kariega plant…
In April 2024, Volkswagen announced a R4-billion investment in its Kariega facility, confirming plans to produce a new small SUV – alongside the Polo hatch and Polo Vivo – from 2027. But when will South Africa get its first glimpse of this as-yet-unrevealed model on local soil?
Martina Biene, Chairperson and Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Africa, told Cars.co.za at Naamsa’s recent South African Auto Week 2024 in Cape Town that the local teaser campaign for what the company refers to as its new “A0 Entry SUV” is scheduled to kick off in February 2025.
“We’re talking about a model coming in the beginning of 2027 to our market. We have started refurbishing [areas of] the plant and there will be a bigger [undertaking] in the plant in May 2025, when we put the robots into the body shop, which is a major operation,” Biene told us.
“But because it takes some time, we have not shown our small SUV car [yet], which is based on the Polo platform. We’ll show something at our Volkswagen Indaba 2025. Just to tease that [event] already: it’s on the 5th of February in Kariega, where we’ll show the first camouflaged model of what is coming, to keep you excited for the next 2 years.”
In September 2024, the Wolfsburg-based firm’s Brazilian arm – which is leading the design and development of this new model – released the first official teaser image. Echoing an earlier statement that VW Group Africa would adapt this vehicle “to the local and continental requirements”, Biene told us her team would “Africanise” it.
“Brazil is the lead plant but Brazil is also left-hand drive. Brazil will launch over the course of the next year – I think, end of next year [2025], if I’m not mistaken. Then comes us, and we’re doing the right-hand-drive development and we’ll ‘Africanise’ it a bit, because it’s not a one-to-one copy, of course,” Biene explained.
While Volkswagen has yet to reveal the name of the new small SUV (which is due to slot in below the T-Cross), its Brazilian division has invited the public to guess the badge that will be used, saying “we can only give one hint: the name will have up to 5 letters”. Whether the vehicle ends up wearing the same moniker in South Africa, of course, remains to be seen…
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