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Volkswagen is putting the finishing touches to a brand new front-wheel drive platform to be used by up to 60 models from Audi, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen by the middle of the next decade.

Known as MQB (modularen querbaukasten or modular transverse engine mount architecture), the new structure will replace today’s PQ2, PQ3 and PQ4 platforms. The move, according to Wolfsburg insiders, will help save Volkswagen and its various offshoots up to a billion euros per year by streamlining product...Read the full article

 Crikey, how old is the Sharan?

An excellent teutonic business decision, I only hope the 2015 range of VW Group cars don't all drive like a bunch of clones.

Sensible to do this in our unforgiving climate but it leaves me cold.

Makes perfect sense, more manufacturers should be doing this. There's no reason why, with proper re-engineering, each of the derived platforms can be very different from each other in character. Try driving a Fiat Coupe and a Fiat Tipo, same platform, don't feel anything like the same. Same with the DB7 Vantage and the Jag XJS and the old Jag XK, all derived from the same platofrm, all with different characteristics. Many platforms within brands are very similar to each other anyway. Its a hot topic whenever something, particularly something sporty, is derived from a supposedly non-sporty platform, but it shouldn't be. Lotus are thinking along the same lines, sort of, with their modular platform.

I agree that there is huge sense in all this but historically the VW Mk4 Golf platform used across a big range of VW product shows how all of them lack driving verve in comparison with their competitors.

Hope history isn't repeated as from Bora to TT that platform made me snore.  

 

 

Sounds like very sound and clever engineering to me. However as a dummy how much does the platfrom entail. I assume it is the floorpan front bulkhead and rear pan but it cant include wheelarches for varying wheelbases and tracks or can it. Do you just bolt different suspension subframes to it to achieve different configurations.

Does a diagram exist to clear my muddied head or can an expert describe it to me in laymans terms. 

 

Yeah the old TT was a bit boring to drive, but I think they COULD have made it excellent, I truly believe it is down to what they do to the platform rather than the platform itself. By platform, I'm meaning the chassis principally.

Jaydub:

I agree that there is huge sense in all this but historically the VW Mk4 Golf platform used across a big range of VW product shows how all of them lack driving verve in comparison with their competitors.

Hope history isn't repeated as from Bora to TT that platform made me snore.  

True, but on the other hand, the Mk5 Golf platform has received much praise for the way most of the variants drive, and they don't all feel like the same car in different bodyshells.  Probably due to it being a much better starting point in the first place.

The Mk5 platform underpins the VW Golf in all its forms, Golf Estate, Golf Plus, Jetta, Passat, Eos, Tiguan, Touran, Caddy, Scirocco; the Audi A3, A3 Cabriolet, TT coupe and roadster; the Skoda Octavia in all its variants; the Seat Leon and Altima, and i can't remember what else.

So this means virtually every single VAG car in future will share the same platform? LOL.

I think most manufacturers share platforms between more than one model nowadays anyway, and lots share between brands as is noted, it seems like VW have pulled out all the stops with this and who can blame them?

The Mk5 Golf platform is a good example of a lesson learned, I hope the engineering team keep their ears to the ground and not become lacklustre again, any brand can become complacent.

 

Although saying that the Passat is an example of the term, 'yawn inspiring' when compared to its competitors, so even the Mk5 platform shows where the engineers baton of verve can drop for VW. 

 

A multi-model platform isn't really news is it? Oh, just noticed, it's VW, like they need the publicity.....