Geneva 2016: VW Up is more car, less product
Opting for a more car-like look for the Volkswagen Up comes at the cost of product design coolness
Volkswagen’s Up has always stood slightly seperately from the rest of the range, the firm’s smallest car being given a much more product design-influenced look than its larger offerings.
However, couple the fact that the Up hasn’t quite sold in the numbers VW expected with the fact that VW needs to sell as many cars as possible if #dieselgate fines are to be afforded and you have the pragmatic and rather disappointing facelift of the Up.
Front and rear bumpers, and the rear lamps are given a much more car-like treatment, making the Up look much more Golf-lite, rather than a cool product that looks as though it would be equally at home in your driveway as on your kitchen counter top.
The loss of the product-design influence through a regular facelift has also meant the Up is now caught somewhere in between, with its new lower masks that say ‘regular car,’ but the carryover body pressings, particularly around the DLO, still retain the look of the earlier car. Hopefully this visual confusion isn’t a metaphor for what’s to come as VW Group sorts itself out.
