This could be the future of VW Automotives, BiFuel allowing a vehicle to run on Petrol as well as LPG Gas. Two tanks, an easy switch over system means you can get fantastic mileage. Many developing countries, India especially, really go all out with LPG gas.

from MotorAuthority:
Volkswagen has unveiled the first ever Golf to be factory-fitted with a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) system at this week’s Bologna Motor Show in Italy. Using a simple switchover system, the Golf ‘BiFuel’ is capable of being driven with either regular petrol or LPG depending on the user’s preference, and according to its creators the combination of petrol and LPG greatly reduces the car’s environmental impact, cutting CO2 emissions by more than 10%.

In LPG mode, the 96hp (72 kW) 1.6L four-cylinder engine of the Golf BiFuel averages 25.5mpg (9.2L/100km ) and 149g/km of CO2. In petrol mode, the Golf BiFuel averages 33mpg (7.1L/100km) and 169g/km of CO2. This means that the 41-liter LPG tank and the 55-liter petrol tank together propel the car to a theoretical range of greater than 683 miles (1,100km). In pure LPG mode, the car’s range is about 260 miles (420km).

While many companies offer aftermarket LPG systems for a range of cars, the system in the Golf BiFuel offers significant advantages to non-OEM systems. One advantage is that the Golf Bifuel, with both of its fuel tanks, has been crash tested as a single car so it has a greater guarantee of safety. Also, the engine in the Golf BiFuel has been specially configured for LPG operation, and so it is more durable than engines originally tuned as petrol only.

Photographs of the Golf 6 GTi are surfacing all over the internet.  Personally this looks more like a Golf 5.5 GTi instead of a Mk6 – Very low key styling.

The 1.4TSi engine is going to be the selling point in the Mk6 generation, in our times of eco-friendly & rocketing fuel prices. Lower consumption is becoming more and more important.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — While folks back in the United States have been content these past few years scooting their hip little Rabbits around the city—and praying that the new Jetta diesel crosses the pond—Volkswagen has been banking on its five incarnations of the flagship Golf here in Europe … to the tune of 26 million units sold. And while gas-gouged Americans were dropping their jaws this week at the unveiling of the VW Golf BlueMotion—and its claimed 62 mpg from the 1.6-liter TDI engine—we were busy driving the nonconcept version of the sixth-gen Golf on some of the wettest and roughest Nordic roads imaginable.

So whaddaya mean it looks like the old Golf? With all the success VW has had thanks to Giorgetto Giugiaro’s design for a small and perfectly formed hatchback replacement, the Mk6 version attempts to answer some of the criticisms of its predecessor—without alienating loyalists. “We just improved the old car,” said Ulrich Hackenberg, VW’s board member for product development. “It sounds banal, but you have to work very hard to do it.” Volkswagen design boss Walter de Silva told us he even stopped the mighty Golf production engines in Wolfsburg, Germany, for two weeks while he stroked his beard over the minutiae of design changes.

But will those picked-over styling cues and just two U.S. models offer enough to fend off Jetta TDI-craving Americans when the Golf arrives stateside next spring? If anything was going to stop us from finding out, it certainly wasn’t going to be everything that Mother Nature and the North Atlantic could throw at us. —Andrew English

The Specs
Under the skin, the Mark VI Golf is essentially a Mark V mirror, so it’s the design shifts that make a difference. The cabin, for one, shows enormous improvement: Surfaces are softer and easier on the eye, and the build quality is simply out of this world. The door pockets feel as if they could stop a train, the interior lamps have a sense of art to them, and the seat-adjusting mechanisms are mechanical delights.

At 165 in. long, the new Golf isn’t the biggest B-segment family hatchback in Europe, but VW makes clever use of the interior space. Two six-footers can sit behind one another in relative comfort with simple and capacious storage bins throughout the cabin, while the trunk is large and relatively uncluttered by the rear-wheel arches. The seats are hard but comfortable, although the standard items don’t grip your torso brilliantly—if you want to go fast round corners, you need the optional sport seats. Other than that, however, the driving position is spot-on, and the large reach-and-rake adjustment on the steering column allows the largest and smallest alike to drive safely.

And for its class, the Golf has an eye-popping tech kit, too. Rain-sensing wipers, dark-sensing headlamps, intelligent cruise control, rear parking cameras, reverse parking programs (you work the pedals, it does the steering) and adaptive chassis control are all options for which it’s well worth forking over the extra cash.

Come January, Europeans will get their pick of five engines at four cylinders apiece—1.4-, 1.6- and 2.0-liter versions of the 1.4-liter TSI petrol engines, plus the latest common-rail fuel-injected 2.0-liter turbodiesel, which is already used in the Skoda Superb and Audi A4. Certainly the latter will become the UK’s most popular option, what with its 140-hp, 236 lb.-ft. of torque and top speed of 130mph—all while hitting 48 mpg.

In the spring, meanwhile, the U.S. will get the Mexican-built, 2.5-liter, 170-hp five-cylinder as fitted to the Jetta, as well as the 200-hp, 2.0-liter FSI mill from the GTI model and the 2.0-liter diesel to boot. The latter engine is already fitted to the Jetta in the States and is going like gangbusters.

The Drive
While you’re sure the engine has started at the turn of the key, you’d struggle to know this new Golf is a diesel. The sound insulation work is exemplary, with a fully insulated firewall, double-skinned insulated bonnet and sound-deadening layer in the laminated windscreen. As project leader Hubertus Lemke says, “Handling needs are different according to different drivers, but everyone needs a quieter car.” As a result, Golf now sets the class standard in cabin refinement, beating even its Audi A3 sister. At speed, there’s a little rustling around the door mirrors, perhaps, but then you look down and realize that, thanks to the quietness of the ride, you’re pushing well over 100 mph.

Matched to the six-speed DSG, twin-clutch transmission, the diesel unit is foolproof, powerful and well mannered. From just under 2000 rpm, the surge is strong and keeps going all the way to the 5000-rpm redline.

Ford’s European Focus still wins the handling argument, but the gap has closed considerably. The lurching weight transfer that used to affect the old Golf has lessened, and while the rear end occasionally heaves over long-wave bumps, the car refuses to become unsettled, no matter what the road and driver throw at it. All-round disc brakes are very powerful with a linear pedal action and a good pedal feel. The steering system is also improved, partly thanks to body-shell stiffening. That makes for a first-class ride, especially on the broken-surface roads.

The U.S., however, won’t benefit immediately from the effervescent little 1.4-liter TSI gasoline engine, and that’s a darn shame. This diminutive turbocharged and supercharged engine pumps out a scarcely believable 160 hp and 177 lb.-ft. of torque while offering a smooth power delivery sans attitude. Fitted with a seven-speed DSG gearbox, or six-speed manual, this top-model TSI has a top speed of 136 mph, pulls 0 to 62 mph in 8 seconds and delivers a pristine 39.2 mpg.

The Bottom Line
“We can deliver this engine in the U.S. if we have to,” Lemke promises of the 1.4-liter TSI. “We are keeping a constant surveillance for market demands for it.” So keep up your pleading, and in the meantime rest assured that VW has smartly relaunched what had been something of a flawed predecessor to the sixth iteration of the Golf. The style is, um, totally Golf, but that’s the whole point. The audience for this popular European car doesn’t want it to change its look every year—they like constancy, reliability and unobtrusiveness. And the fact that their favorite is now a whole lot nicer to drive is a bonus with which they’re happy to live.

Underneath, the Mk6 Golf uses the same platform as the Mk5, with various engineering upgrades including a further increase in stiffness and more advanced ESP system. In the flesh the styling hasn’t been moved on that far either, despite all the external panels (aside from the roof) being new.

The all-important styling was led by VW Group design boss Walter de Silva and VW styling chief Klaus Bischoff. They claiming they were inspired by the Mk1 and Mk4 Golfs. The main external distinction is the ‘tornado line’ ridge which runs down the side elevation. Otherwise de Silva and Bischoff’s machine has a Touareg-alike tail and a nose that, despite the glassy new headlamps, is not so far removed from the Mk5 VW Golf.

The interior is also newly minted (with noticeably better surface quality), but has a dashboard that is very similar to the current Golf, though the door skins are characterfully new. The Mk6 is neat and Golf-tidy but it looks more like a Mk5.5 than a model worthy of new generation billing.

VW’s chief designers also made great play of the attention to detail that had gone into the interior fit and finish and tight fit of the exterior panels. ´Precision’ was the key word at the press conference.

Aside from the handy 120bhp 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine, the MK6 VW Golf introduces other engines including a new 108bhp and 138bhp 2.0TDI common-rail diesels. All diesel engines get a particulate filter as standard and there’s a choice of five or six-speed manuals and six or seven-speed DSGs boxes.

Standard Golf kit includes air conditioning, seven airbags (including a knee bag), ESP and body-coloured trim. Prices will kick off in the UK at around £13,000 for the S trim up to £21,000 for the GT models.

What’s it like?
It’s quiet – exceptionally quiet, in fact. VW engineers have been through the old Mk5 Golf design aiming to make a major leap forward in refinement. There’s no doubt that they’ve succeeded. Iceland has some of the noisiest roads in the world (worse even than South Africa and the UK said a VW engineer) but the cabin of our 2.0 TDI DSG model was uncannily unruffled. Even the engine was a distant companion.

VW has thrown the works at it, in its goal to make the VW Golf as refined as a car from the class above. It gets newly design door seals, new engine mounts, quiet tyres, extra sound proofing around the front bulkhead and in the A-pillars and even thicker glass, which has a sound-deadening plastic film sandwiched within it.

Even the individual components that go into the car were optimised though redesigns and the way they are mounted to keep noisy resonance at bay.

Despite the chief chassis engineer telling Autocar the chassis settings had been virtually carried over from the Mk5, this Mk6 lacked any verve. It was certainly smooth, stable and measured in its responses with pleasingly heavy steering, but it was also more baby executive than sparky hatch.

Should I buy one?

This latest model marks the Phaetonisation of the Golf concept. The Mk6 – in non GTI form at least – becomes the most refined and upmarket feeling car in this sector. There’s a pleasing all-of-a-piece heft about it.

In the late 1990s then boss Ferdinand Piech wanted VW to become a kind of budget Mercedes-Benz (think of the old Golf V5). It’s clear that Piech’s influence (now as the head of the VW supervisory board) can again be felt in the execution of the new Golf.

It looks like being an ideal car to downsize into, and should handle long distance journeys at a stride, but only we get it onto UK roads will we be able to gauge the true extent to which ultra-refinment has robbed the Golf of its zest.

Source: Autocar.co.uk

Golf BlueMotion concept represents the greenest version of the already thrifty hatchback.

Power for the Golf BlueMotion is provided by a 1.6L common rail diesel. Output is rated at 100 horsepower and 184 lb-ft of torque, which can scoot the Golf from 0-62 in a respectable 11.3 seconds.

In addition to its diesel powerplant, the Golf BlueMotion concept also has plenty of other green features. Thanks to low rolling resistance tires, a revised aerodynamic pack and a five-speed gearbox tuned for economy, the Golf BlueMotion concept returns 74.3 mpg on the European cycle (roughly 62 mpg in the U.S.).

More pictures after the jump:

]]> http://vagfans.com/site/2008/09/10/volkswagen-announces-bluemotion-golf/feed/ 0 http://vagfans.com/site/2008/09/07/vw-golf-6-stationwagon/ http://vagfans.com/site/2008/09/07/vw-golf-6-stationwagon/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:23:00 +0000 naeem.co.za http://vagfans.com/site/2008/09/07/vw-golf-6-stationwagon/ In Europe & USA they call them “Variant” – back here in South Africa we call them wagons or station wagons – hardly flattering but this leaked image more then makes up for it.

“With the initial reveal of Volkswagen’s Golf VI out of the way, VW engineers have begun testing what appears to be the next-generation
GTI. The higher-performance touches are evident throughout. Designers have done away with the horizontal slats on the standard
Golf’s front fascia, in favor of a honeycomb mesh treatment similar to current GTI. The front bumper’s two outside air-ducts are straked for
dramatic effect, while ditching the fog lamps to feed more air to the brakes. Speaking of the brakes, the calipers are painted red.
This Golf has a prominent dual exhaust system, something new to the GTI lineup. The dual exhaust setup raised questions that this might
be a prototype for an R32 replacement, but the R32’s dual pipes are centrally mounted, and the grillework is more in keeping with prior
GTI cues. Add to this reports from industry sources claiming that the V6-powered R32 won’t be renewed in the sixth-generation Golf lineup,
and it’s a certainty that we’re looking at the GTI here.

VW’s new global 2.0-liter turbocharged engine is expected to power the new GTI, reportedly generating 211 hp thanks to the addition of a new
variable valve-lift system.

Sources report that the GTI will make a veiled debut as a concept at the Paris Motor Show this October.”