The mid-engined Volkswagen BlueSport roadster is at least three years from production, one of the car’s key engineers has said.
The BlueSport is assembled from a mix of bespoke and production parts. The production parts are lifted from VW’s new transverse, front-engined MQB platform, not due in production until 2012.
But because those parts won’t be tooled until 2012, the BlueSport can’t borrow from the VW parts bin and will have to wait until then.
Despite the delay, the VW BlueSport has been deliberately designed to be production ready now. “We set out to make it legal and ready to go,” said advanced design chief Thomas Inglenath.
The VW BlueSport, aimed at the likes of the Mazda MX-5 and Lotus Elise, weighs 1200kg and uses a manual, unlined hood to save weight.
VW group boss Martin Winterkorn and R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg both pushed the project and chose the final styling, further adding to the BlueSport’s production credentials.
The next task for project engineers is to present the BlueSport to other VW engineers and convince them the car is goer – until now it hasn’t been widely seen inside VW.
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