Up! down and out

[pologti18t]

Volkswagen Eos, Up! axed from streamlined range; Scirocco uncertain | CarAdvice

Speaking about the future of the range-entry Up!, Volkswagen Australia communications general manager Karl Gehling told CarAdvice, “That [sub-light] segment is very price sensitive. When we put an offer on, it sells well, but without an offer on, volumes are insignificant. At this stage we’re not planning on continuing with it once current stocks are sold out.

[sVWatt]

I liked the little Up. I had the new Polo and loved it.

[phaeton]

Its is a very price sensitive market the up! was in and understandably VW sees money being spent elsewhere would be better than inconsistent sales.

Unfortunately the up! has no auto which I would say a very high percentage of buyers in this class demand.
Perhaps up! mk2 can come back with an auto and do the sales VW want it to do.

RIP little up! I was waiting for an up! GT guess my dream will never come true.

[Dutch77]

We went in looking at the up! and ended up with the Polo, the pricing just made too much sense at the time.

I see they're trying to move the remaining stock quickly with a 'two coffees per day = $8' finance promotion that I got via mail the other day.

Agree that the lack of an auto killed it given the market (in addition to its pricing in relation to the Polo).

[AndrewBurns]

I have to say when I saw the price of the up! I didn't see why you would buy one compared to a polo.

[bluey]

Maybe VWA would prefer to bring in a Skoda Citigo at a lower price point without risking cannibalising Polo sales????

[Snail Style]

From what I heard, VW Aus didn't give the nod to the auto because it wasn't a very good box. Compare that to the manual box they have and the auto must have been something horrible.

[Tobes_WIR35]

I don't know how VWA managed to make such a failure of the Up! To be honest, I think VWA have an extremely lazy marketing department, and that's why we miss out on so many other cool VW models. The Up! could have been successful if the marketing department did their job and told people about how much of a great little car it is.

We miss out on all of their EV and hybrid models for a start. The Golf GTE (similar to the Audi A3 e-tron) would have been a fantastic car. VWA reckon there is no demand for it. Even the E-Up! would have been excellent for company fleets that run around the city. They just have such a lazy marketing strategy. It's really disappointing. Maybe their marketing staff are all ex-Holden or something where the "status quo" is everything. They're just lucky the VW vehicles sell themselves, otherwise VWA wouldn't sell a bloody thing.

[dubin]

so they cynically foist a 3 cyl 1.0L car for what on the public for what... $17k?

But carry on selling Polos for only a little more.

And then they give up and call it price sensitive segment!

Yikes- talk about 'People in glass hausen...'

Perhaps they're marketing department isn't in Australia. What they might call that are just local sales (or marketers selling stuff). The marketers at VW are speccin low volume models to define new segments and in case of failure drive customers to existing ones... LOL!

The Up! should be an sold as an electric model, this is what the platform was designed for surely. In Australia however, the best thing well to wheel would be an LPG variant. I don't imagine the local 'marketers' ordering or asking for that though... no surprise as to why I guess.

Still, any old up would kill that appallingly awful new plastic Mitsubishi Mirage... that has to take the cake for worst car of the decade. They cost $14k drive away which is ok if you think you could use it like a vw. I'd have trouble going near it, let alone opening the door...

[bigred134]

Very sad. An Up GTi could have been very fun little car