Bigger automakers tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with the car industry’s characteristics, because they can work as efficient tools to their corporate strategies as easily as strong barriers against them. The established categories’ very existance, for instance, provide useful information of what the public will certainly accept, but most of them have so firm leaders that it turns very hard for most newcomers to enter. This is the reason why some automakers try to subvert this system through creating whole new categories.
Talking about this topic turns interesting when one starts to remember its most notorious examples, whether the successful or the failed ones. Renault Avantime’s modern interpretation of minivans didn’t succeed also due to its “too modern” design, but specially because its main feature were only two doors, which goes in the opposite way of that category’s proposal. Citroën C3 Pluriel tried to offer several categories in only one car, but couldn’t be any of them well enough. The crossovers should’ve been anticipated by Pontiac, but it doesn’t take more than looking to one picture to see why Aztek failed in that. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz is all smiles with CLS, since every other luxury automaker followed its “four-door coupe” recipe. VW Group, in turn, must’ve become satisfied with the Sportback concept, debuted with the second Audi A3. For this vehicle it means giving the four-door a little longer wheelbase than the two-door’s, rather than only changing the doors. This increases the first’s internal space and makes the second look sportier, but still doesn’t affect the station wagon’s market. Škoda and Volkswagen work in different markets, but managed to adapt this idea to their own realities.
Yes, if you’re used to follow the car world’s news, the latter brand is the reason why this article’s car is causing you some déjà vu. Spaceback is very similar to VW Gran Lavida, which was released at the last Auto Shanghai only for China, but without any part sharing – the Chinese is based on the PQ34 platform, while the Czech uses PQ25. It’s interesting to notice that the original Rapid also features a “subversive” concept: it is shaped just like a sedan, but its rear windshield is taken with the trunk lid, following cars like Fiat Croma and Saab 9000. Moving to Spaceback, the “quirk” is the aforementioned increased length, which makes it longer than a traditional hatch but shorter than a station wagon. Even than the sedan, actually: the 18-cm decrease turns at least curious to name this vehicle highlighting its space – the trunk was reduced to 415 liters (1380 with the rear seats folded), but the cabin was untouched. So remained the exterior until the front doors included, which lead to an exclusive second half. Since Škoda wants to attract younger customers, Spaceback will repeat the sedan’s equipments but include the exclusive “extended glass surface” seen at the pictures. The entire powertrain will be shared, too.
Volkswagen Gran Santana (22/04/2015)
Haven’t you seen a car exactly like this before? There are actually two of them. One is the Škoda version, presented right above this paragraph, from which Gran Santana was derived. The other, which arrived earlier, is another VW, and another “Gran” vehicle – the Gran Lavida created by FAW-Volkswagen (if you want to spot their differences, they do exist… but it’ll take some time). The orange vehicle of the pictures above, in turn, was created by Shanghai-Volkswagen only for the Chinese market, once again. After all, it seems like the Germans can’t get enough of the strategy of working in that country under two different companies which compete with each other, instead of making them working together. As ridiculous as this may sound.
Compared to Rapid Spaceback, in turn, Gran Santana enjoys the freedom of not belonging to a practical automaker. The overall design still resembles a station wagon, but elements such as the massive use of the external color in the cabin (and having chosen orange to express this) lead to think this car is intended to be a sporty counterpart for the Santana sedan, instead of a roomier one. As far as powertrain is concerned, there will be a 110-hp 1.6-liter, and a 130-hp, 1.4-liter TSI – the latter, at least, can have the regular five-speed manual transmission upgraded to a DSG. Given that it’ll be a low-cost car, Gran Santana is still based on Volkswagen’s PQ25 platform, not MQB. It’ll go on sale in the next few months.