Volkswagen Bulli concept

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Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
8 Mar 2011
2 min read

Now it's back. Volkswagen's newer take on the, er, new Kombi, was shown at Geneva motor show - but though the shape is familiar, it's not what you'd expect.  For one the Bulli - the German nickname for the original 1950 concept - is smaller. Second, it's powered by batteries.

Yes, it's just a concept but whispers on the Geneva show floor say it's very possibly in showroom contention.  Volkswagen product director Ulrich Hackenberg says there's a "big chance" it will be built.

The concept Bulli gets seating for six - three in the front, three in the back - and runs on lithium-ion batteries stored under the floor.  The concept has a single, 85kW/270Nm electric motor under the blunt nose and drives the front wheels.

Volkswagen claims a 0-100km/h time of 11.5 seconds (compared to an hour and a half in the 1960s Kombi) and a 300km range.  But for production, Volkswagen is looking at a petrol or diesel engine.

Given the space under that short nose, this is likely to be the 1.2-litre, three-cylinder petrol or diesel engines.  All the cues of the past - except the gaping accommodation in the rear - are there including the bold VW emblem on the nose.

As for size, it's small. The Bulli is 3900mm long (the 1969 bay-window Kombi is 4350mm); with a 2550mm wheelbase (2400mm in 1969), and is 1650mm tall (1918mm).

Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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