Hot hatches are a magical blend of useable performance and practicality. Their popularity has led manufacturers to come up with hot variants of their different hatchbacks. VW, for instance, had several hot variants of their Polo and larger Golf hatchbacks. And now, they’ve slotted a new hot version under them and this time, it’s their puny little Up! hatchback that gets the treatment.
Ronny Wechselberger’s sets a new Guinness world record of 35cm for parallel-parking, in reverse naturally, using a Volkswagen Up fitted with a special handbrake. Looks easy enough.
The Volkswagen Up! small city car won 2012 World Car of the Year, defeating the 2012 BMW 3-Series and the 2012 Porsche 911.
The all-new Volkswagen Up, or as the marketeers have dubbed it, the “up!”, is VW’s attempt to make a vehicle that harks back to the original VW Beetle, a car for the masses. The up! will first be launched in the European market in December 2011. There are 3 versions for different budgets and needs. The “take up!” is the entry-level car, the “move up!” is the mid-range one and the “high up!” is the top version. At the car’s launch, there will also be 2 independent models based on the high up!, namely the “up! black” and the “up!