Cultural Revolution! China Gets New Santana And New Jetta! Brazil Next?

by Bertel Schmitt

August 17th, 2012 10:12 AM

cultural revolution china gets new santana and new jetta brazil next

Some thirty years later, China will finally get a new Santana. Here it is, brought to you by our friends at Carnewschina. In case it looks familiar, Carnewschina tells us that the new Santana is basically the new Jetta. The current models, holdovers from the stone age, finally can go to the junkyard of history.

Both cars are sitting on a stretched Polo PQ25 platform (see Skoda Rapid and Seat Toledo.) Like the old Jetta of lore, the new Jetta will be made by FAW-Volkswagen. The new Santana will be made, like the current Santana, by Shanghai-Volkswagen. Both cars are expected to be powered by a 1.4 liter or 1.6 liter engine, stick or auto.

Supposedly, the Chinese press is complaining that the two look too much alike. Whiners.

PS: Our special Southern Cone Correspondent Marcelo telegraphs that the Santana (so far only) will be coming to Brazil, and possibly Mexico. Someone is making good use of the tooling. Or not: Marcelo says the Brazilian version is based on the PQ24. Probably Con-Fu-Zion. We are waiting, Marcelo.

#.Santana #BertelSchmitt #Carnewschina #China #Jetta

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Victor on Aug 17, 2012

A few years ago VW was developing a stretched PQ24 sedan, using a the-current Polo Sedan as a testing mule. Nothing has come out of that so far, but the prototype Autoesporte took pictures from back then looks a lot like the white one. What puzzles me is that currently VW is using the Jetta as a testing mule for the new brazilian Santana, and it's bigger than the PQ24 cars.

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- Marcelo de Vasconcellos on Aug 17, 2012
  
  The Santana will be smaller than Jetta. Think Cobalt, Versa or Logan size. More on that tomorrow. But they're using the Jetta as a shell for the 'new' mechanicals to throw off observers (and competitors).
  
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Phaeton on Aug 28, 2012

Hello to Bertel & Marcelo. The Santana NF & Jetta NF are based on the Polo PQ25 platform and highly related to the new Skoda Rapid and SEAT Toledo hatchbacks. I have been reading everything about this model for the past couple of months via carnewschina and chinacartimes. Chinese media are reporting that one of the NF models will be sold globally to BRIC markets and ASEAN region markets. (http://www.bjnews.com.cn/auto/2012/08/06/215022.html) Cheers phaeton

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