Volkswagen to grow Golf 7 range in Australia

VOLKSWAGEN will grow its small-car range in Australia when the seventh-generation Golf arrives mid-2013, rather than limit the number of variants as it has done with a string of recent releases.

The current Golf range consists of 22 variants across hatches, wagons, manuals, automatics, and the three-door and five-door GTI body styles.

But VW Group Australia managing director Anke Koeckler told GoAuto there is room for more.

“When it comes to the new Golf, you might actually see more variations,” she said, agreeing that a volume-seller can justify a broad range.

“It always depends on the volume, and the Golf is that kind of model – we will see more variations of the Golf.”

The current-generation Polo light-car range was the first to be trimmed back, with three engine choices plus the hot GTI flagship, and deletion of the entry-level three-door early this year.

Since then, the Golf Cabriolet, Up city hatch and Passat Alltrack crossover have all been launched with single engines and specifications.

Left: Volkswagen Australia's Anke Koeckler.

As GoAuto reported in August, the second-generation New Beetle will follow suit when it launches in February.

“We are looking into that we are not making our model range more complex,” said Ms Koeckler.

“One of the big things when I arrived (in Australia) three years ago was that our range seemed a little too vast.

“So every time since – as you have seen with the Polo in 2010 – we have tried to look into that (so) we are not having small mixes and all the different variations.

“We did it with the Golf Cabriolet – there is only one engine – we will do it with the Beetle, which also has only one engine, and now the Passat Alltrack as well.

“In those small segments, there is no need to offer all the engines because we always want to make sure that we are not making the life of the dealers more difficult.”

The Passat Alltrack is a raised, ruggedised all-wheel-drive crossover version of VW’s mid-size family wagon and in 2007 the German firm launched the conceptually similar but front-drive CrossGolf in Europe.

However, Ms Koeckler said such a version of the Golf 7 was not currently in the pipeline as one of the potential extra variants, but did not rule out future crossovers.

“I guess once the Passat Alltrack is also a very big success around the world, our engineers will take it on board and look into (crossover versions) for other cars as well.”