Volkswagen unveiled their most important new platform, dubbed MQB (a German acronym for “Modular Transverse Matrix”). The MQB will underpin everything from the Up! to the next (European) Passat, and all points in between.
While the wheelbase can be adjusted to fit different sized vehicles, all motors, whether gas, diesel or hybrid, will use the same mounting points and transmissions. Photos appear to show a raised rear bench seat for better leg room, and stronger steel and more aluminum chassis components will help vehicles like the next Golf shed lots of weight.
The first MQB car will be the new Audi A3, which will debut this summer and be sold only as a sedan in the United States. The new MK7 Golf should follow after that, getting a reveal at September’s Paris Auto Show.
The new A3 will debut at the Geneva show in March.
All engines will use the same mounting points?
I for one welcome our new VR6 powered Polo overlords.
Car thieves everywhere just perked up.
According to the diagram it appears that the amount of space available under the bonnet will be variable, so as awesome as a VR6 Polo sounds, I’m not sure that VW will build in enough space on such a small car to make a swap viable. We can but hope…
The new A3 comes in only one configuration? And that configuration will only be sold in the US?
Or did you perhaps mean to say something quite different from what you wrote?
As of now Audi says the US will only get the sedan. Other variants will be available around the world. Subject to change of course
I don’t doubt it. That is not, however, what Derek wrote.
You just answered your own question.
You don’t get “rhetorical question”, do you?
Derek, are you sure that the sedan is the only A3 body style coming to the U.S. for the next-gen? I was under the impression that we were getting both the sedan and the Sportback, and maybe even the next-gen A3 Cabrio.
Game-chaning engineering triumph? No, a feat.
The raised rear seating is more likely due to the need to accommodate a rear differential for any of the 4motion/quattro variations of the platform that will invariably follow…
I was thinking gas tank, but that works too.
it was brilliant when Ford started doing it with the model T (yes, I now it’s different, but it’s the same thinking that lies behind it), and it still is brilliant to base all your cars on one common base.
The model T may only have been the base of 10-15 different cars. VW can probably double that, as they more or less have with the current golf platform.