Volkswagen Cross Up!

Do you remember that big group of up!’s conceptual versions VW showed shortly after releasing the main one? There were the ecological one, the sporty, the electric… Almost one hatchback for each kind of driver. It took some months, but they’re finally starting to turn into production vehicles. After the four-door body and the eco up! version, now this supermini borrows inspiration from the big brothers around the world and officially follows one of the latest car trends to be successful both in Europe and Latin America.

This trend is nothing more than what was initiated in the late 1990s, with Volvo V70 Cross Country in Europe almost at the same time as Fiat Palio Adventure in Brazil, which could be defined as a “prequel” to the current crossovers. In other words, the right proportion between off-road capacities and urban-car conveniences were already been searched for years, but those two’s concept was the first one to achieve considerable success. It was nothing more than adding items like elevated suspension and off-road tires to urban vehicles – the station wagons must’ve been chosen probably for being similar to the actual SUVs – along to very attractive visual accessories. This formula such good acceptance that started to spread around more countries, but specially around the automakers and their lines. Hatches, pick-ups, minivans and even compact crossovers, in nowadays almost everyone offers at least one “urban off-road”, despite of this name being a huge paradox. However, having such this variety of these cars led the buyers to draw more specific preferences with them. The biggest difference turned out to be whether to offer the typical off-road characteristics or not. Items such as four-wheel traction, differential lock and special tires became preferred by the upscale market, whose customers have more frequent trips around off-road tracks, like to non-urban properties.

On the other side, the lower-budget customers started to give more attention to other aspects when looking for one of these cars. Besides of having smaller prices, giving away those more specific technologies was the right decision also because almost all of them travel mostly in streets and highways. In Volkswagen’s showroom, for example, those are the reasons why Golf 4Motion suits the first group better and CrossGolf suits the second. And since up! is the brand’s entry-level car, it only makes sense as it actually comes: since there aren’t any deep changes, it comes only as a new version. Therefore, cross up! has added nothing more than exclusive bumpers with bigger front grille and gray painting, black plastic fenders and side protectors, roof rack and the beautiful 16” wheels – internally, it’ll only offer the red-and-black coating seen in the pictures, which has received some minor styling changes compared to the original options; as the pictures show, this car’s effort is to look cute, and specially slightly different from the urban up!, rather than giving impressions that it could climb mountains or cross deep rivers. This is what the customers expect from this car’s price range and nothing more, actually both in Europe and Latin America. Since the intention is to sell cross as an upmarket trim it’ll only come in four doors, but conserving the three-cylinder 1.0L with 70 hp, the front-wheel-drive and the five-speed manual transmission, starting at € 13.925 in Germany.