SCIROCCO IS A GO; Vw re-creates its affordable coupe, but will we ever see it here?(News)

Byline: GREG KABLE

Volkswagen is taking its obsession with heritage to new heights with the swoopy new two-door Scirocco, resurrecting the compact sports coupe some 34 years after it rewrote the rule book on affordable performance. The new Scirocco is aimed to inject some much-needed excitement back into the German carmaker's current lineup, in very much the same way the original did back when Richard Nixon was in the White House. The first-generation model, penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro and produced at Karmann, was launched to critical acclaim as a replacement for the rear-engined Karmann Ghia.

Making its world premiere at this year's Geneva motor show, the Scirocco builds on the well-received Iroc concept car unveiled at the Paris show in 2006. VW hopes it has created a car that will be cool in the eyes of the young and the young at heart. If it's successful, this car will do for VW what the TT has done for Audi over the past decade and provide it with an affordable, contemporary, relevant and desirable model upon which to build the rest of its lineup.

Still up in the air is whether VW's brain trust believes the U.S. market is primed for a new Scirocco. VW's U.S. CEO, Stefan Jacoby, has made it clear that new product will be the key to his plans to reclaim lost market share in North America and triple VW's U.S. sales to 800,000 units by 2018. Whether the Scirocco joins the 2009 Passat CC (due late this year) as part of that effort remains to be seen.

While VW's current board members, chairman Martin Winterkorn included, are quick to take credit for the new car, the resurrection of the iconic VW coupe is very much the legacy of former boss Wolfgang Bernhard. Bernhard, who rose to prominence at Chrysler, dreamed up the idea of bringing the Scirocco back as a means of adding spice to the VW showroom. He played a pivotal role not only in ensuring that it made it past the bean counters but also in deciding how it would look and what hardware it would use.

The new car rides on the same basic chassis and uses the same drivetrains as the front-wheel-drive Golf (and the Eos hardtop convertible). Despite the common underpinnings, the Scirocco cuts a completely different look from the Golf's. That's exactly what Robert Lesnik, credited with the Scirocco's distinctive "cab-backward'' silhouette, wanted to achieve when he sat down back in 2005 to create the Iroc concept car.

After resurrecting the Beetle and threatening to revive the Microbus during the past decade, VW has consciously steered away from giving the Scirocco any throwback design cues, instead employing contemporary styling that insiders tell AutoWeek will provide the direction for future VW models, including the new sixth-generation Golf due in September in Europe.