Volkswagen AG will begin selling the seventh generation of its best-selling VW Golf hatchback at the “end of 2012 or early 2013,” a company spokesman said on Saturday.
The next Golf will be the first Volkswagen brand model to be based on the cost-saving modular transverse architecture, known by its German abbreviation “MQB,” that will eventually be used to build millions of vehicles groupwide every year.
The company has said it expects savings in the double-digit percentage range thanks to a production process that differs from the previous vehicle platforms, which only offer synergies across brands using the same underpinnings rather than synergies across both brands and models.
The first vehicle to use MQB-based modularity will be the new Audi A3 due in the summer of 2012.
The VW spokesman’s comments follows a report in Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.
Automobilwoche, citing a person close to VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, said that the new Golf, Europe’s top-selling car, would arrive in showrooms in November 2012. However, the VW spokesman said no specific month had yet been targeted for the launch.
- AutoNews
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