Secret Recipe Revealed: How FAW Gets A Tiguan Without SAIC Losing Face

SUVs are hot in China, and VW’s SUVlet, the Tiguan has turned into a hot seller. In the last few months, it steadily worked itself up the SUV charts and was in the second position in July, behind the Honda CR-V, and before the Nissan Qashqai. In China, the Tiguan is made by Volkswagen’s southern joint venture with Shanghai Volkswagen. What to do when Volkswagen’s Northern joint venture with FAW develops offroadish desires?

China Car Times heard around the hot water dispenser (they like to drink hot water in China, yuck, I know) that First Automobile Works has signaled its wishes that Volkswagen should go off-road with them. Volkswagen can hardly give them the Tiguan as well. That would be taking socialism too far. So what’s Volkswagen to do?

According to (British born) Ash Sutcliffe of China Car Times, “FAW are working with VW to produce their own self designed VW SUV on top of the Tiguan platform.”

Now Ash, Volkswagen would NEVER do that and cheat their Shanghainese partners. Let me show you how this works at Volkswagen: Everybody knows that the Audi Q3 is coming to China next year, right? The car, unveiled at the Shanghai Motorshow with yours truly snapping away and Ash without camera, will be made by Audi’s JV partner – FAW.

The Tiguan and the Q3 are based on the current Golf platform. (NOT MQB as erroneously stated on occasion.) Being an Audi, the Q3 will be built by FAW. FAW also makes the Golf. The Tiguan and Q3 are based on – the Golf. Now if that rumor is true, Volkswagen would never ever help FAW to build an SUV on top of the Tiguan platform. That would break the contract and good form.

They’ll help them build an SUV on the Golf platform! What’s wrong with that? It could even look a bit like the Q3. I mean, all these SUVlets look alike anyway, right? Especially in China. Everybody keeps face, everybody happy. Now, where’s the next KTV?