Volkswagen up! now with added fleet appeal
The Volkswagen up!, if you hadn’t heard, is the German carmaker’s game-changing city car. Given its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2011 the compact classic is already racking up the sales in Germany and selected other European markets ahead of its March release in the UK.
However, up to now the only option has been the three-door version, making it a difficult sell to fleets. However, Volkswagen has now revealed the first official photos of the five-door variant. Shown below the five-door keeps the charm of the original but with bags more practicality which will hopefully find the model added to plenty of fleet lists over the coming months.
With an impressive 2.42 metre long wheelbase the interior of the up! is surprisingly roomy, with enough room in the rear for most adults, while the boot, often neglected in city cars is a compact but usable 251-litres. Fold the back seats flat and available luggage space increases to 951 litres (equivalent to the space found in the larger VW Polo with its seats folded).
Rear passengers in the five-door up! benefit from exactly the same space as those in the three-door model, with 947 mm of headroom (versus 993 mm in the front) and 789 mm of legroom. The rear seat base is set slightly higher than that in the front, at 378 mm (versus 306 mm) giving passengers a clearer view of the road ahead.
As well as front and side airbags, ABS with Hydraulic Brake Assist, Isofix child seat preparation in the rear and standard ESP (on all but the entry level Take up! model), the up! can be ordered with an optional City Emergency Braking system. This uses sensors to scan the space ahead of the vehicle, applying the brakes automatically if it detects that the car is about to hit an object in front, and costs from just £225.
The up! has received a five-star rating and the Advanced Award from Euro NCAP, the European New Car Assessment Programme. It is the first vehicle in this class to receive these awards.
Power comes from a new three-cylinder 1.0-litre petrol engine family, making it cheap to tax and cheap to run.
Available with a choice of both 60PS and 75PS power outputs, the up! is also available as a BlueMotion Technology model, with combined fuel economy of 68.9 mpg and CO2 emissions of just 96g/km. Even the more powerful unit is fuel efficient and Low CO2, with combined mpg of 60.1 and CO2 emissions of 108 g/km.
If you like the sound of the five-door up! then first deliveries are expected in the second half of 2012, with trims levels mirroring that of the three-door version.
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