REPORTS in late June suggested that Volkswagen had been toying with a possible cooperative alliance with Japanese manufacturer Suzuki to improve its ‘ultra small car’ expertise.
According to a Reuters piece at the time, an unidentified source said that Volkswagen was looking to offer a range of small cars based on the Up! concept, and was looking at an alliance to help reduce the project’s development costs.
Volkswagen CEO Dr. Martin Winterkorn has now added some credence to the earlier reports, telling German publication Manager Magazin that “Suzuki would be an interesting partner because of its competency in small cars”.
The magazine reported that the German giant was investigating the option of buying a 10 percent stake in Suzuki, ensuring access to the Japanese manufacturer’s technology and knowledge.
In June however, the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper quoted Suzuki CEO Osamu Suzuki at the time as saying that no contact has been made between the two manufacturers.
“So far there’s been absolutely no contact (with Volkswagen). Lately, we’ve been the victim of a lot of rumours (of equity tie-ups and cooperation deals),” he commented at the time.
Things would now appear to have moved, at least from Volkswagen’s perspective. This looks to be a case of ‘watch this space’.
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I cannot for the life of me see how VW can learn anything from Suzuki. Yes, the Suzis are great little cars, (although the latest small thing - alto- looks pretty cheap inside) but VW has the Golf (now grown) Lupo, Polo, diesels, petrols, turbos, bluemotions, etc..
Suzuki doesn’t really have anything that could enable VW to improve their range. Except a VW at Suzuki prices - I’d like to see that
I think the Japanese innovation might help
Like useless little tech stuff that people over time become used to having it in their life and depending on it
much like microwaves and remote controlled toilets
but yes no one wouldn’t mind cheaper VWs, although VW has to watch out for its slumping resale value, over here in NZ there’s a 2009 VW touareg R50, RRP $182 now doing 148 and its pretty highly specced up
oooh and VW needs a fancier dashboard too
and that little orange screen between the tacho and speedo doesn’t really go on a car worth $150k+