Goodbye Volkswagen Scirocco, We Hardly Knew Ye

The Volkswagen Scirocco has reached the end of the line as the death bed for the third-generation model receives its patient after a prolonged but largely unsuccessful decade.

Closely related to the Mk5 Volkswagen Golf — not the Mk6 or Mk7 that were introduced during its tenure — the Scirocco always faced headwinds in the form of Volkswagen’s own more practical Golf GTI.

Although earlier iterations of the Volkswagen Scirocco and its Corrado successor were marketed in America, the latest Scirocco never made it across the Atlantic.

“That’s a piece of the lineup that I would dearly love to see here,” then Volkswagen of America CEO Jonathan Browning said four years into the Scirroco’s tenure. The concerns, of course, were related to the fact that the Scirocco would cannibalize the GTI, and vice versa.

And for that very reason — the fact that the Scirocco couldn’t succeed alongside the Golf — the Scirocco’s European experiment is ending before a rumored fourth-gen model could ever dream of making it in America.

According to Car And Driver, the only Sciroccos now available in Europe are Sciroccos that have already been built. So ends a run that began in 1974 and ended (the first time) in 1992.

The final Scirocco was previewed by the 2006 Paris Motor Show’s IROC Concept. While the outrageous front end (which seems so much less outrageous 11 years later) was neutered for production by incoming Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn, Car And Driver says, the overall Scirocco shape remained largely intact for production. The rather, how do you say in the German, klobig rear end bulged out of clothes.

The third-gen Scirocco was not unpopular to begin with, but timing the launch of a sporty car with global economic collapse did Volkswagen no favors. According to CarSalesBase, European Scirocco volume tumbled from a high of 45,248 units in its first full year (2009) to only 10,093 units in 2014, a 78-percent dive produced by year after year after year after year of declines. Only 60,000 Sciroccos have been sold across Europe during the last five calendar years, a period in which Volkswagen sold more than twice that many Beetles in Europe.

As for the Portugal-built Sciroccos that remain, the basic 180-horsepower Scirocco is priced in the UK from £18,195. The 220-horsepower model costs £25,550, or £2,770 less than the Golf GTI. The 280-horsepower Scirocco R lists at £30,190, which is £2,520 less than the Golf R, albeit without the Golf R’s all-wheel drive.

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars and Instagram.