Volkswagen Debuts GTI and Polo Concepts at Worthersee

It's a VW tradition.  Every year at the Worthersee show in southern Austria, which is the largest VW and Audi show in the world, VW usually debuts some fantastic concept cars to thousands of adoring fans.  A few years ago, it was a MKV Golf with a twin-turbocharged W12 mounted where the back seats go, driving the rear wheels.  In a sign of the times, this year it's a pair of spruced-up production hatchbacks: a MKVI GTi and a new Polo.  While they're not overendowed with weapons-grade horsepower (sadly), they do present distinctly producable packages for the Golf and Polo.

The GTi Worthersee is a modified new Golf GTI, and the biggest difference is the paint - called Firespark Metallic, it's a deep-deep-deep cherry red with a hint of black to it.  Absolutely lovely.  It's also been treated to some black-finish multispoke 19" alloys with a red lip, time-attack style, and some smoked-finish LED rear taillamps as well as a color-matched strip on the front grille.

Inside, the GTI Worthersee '09 gets lots of little trim changes to bring the interior ambience up a notch.  "Worthersee 2009" sill plates, redesigned seats with color-matched bolsters, and some piano-black trim make the GTI a more inviting place to spend time.

They've also fitted a sports dual exhaust and lowered the suspension enough so the car doesn't sit like a 4x4.  And... that's about it.  It's a nice looking package, but there's no word on production intent... yet.

The Polo Worthersee is a bit more show and less go, but hey - it's a Polo.  It's a basic 1.4L Polo with 86 thundering horsepower (what, no 1.8T swap?  Come on, VW.)  Highlights on the outside include the Flash Red paint with black "rally stripes", and some rather striking 18" two-tone "Budapest" alloy wheels.  It's also been  lowered a bit so those wheels can fill the wells with more authority.

The interior is treated to black high-gloss finish in multiple places, bringing the classiness up a bit.  Two-tone black leather and white microfiber seats are a nice touch, too.

So, while they aren't the most exciting concepts, we should be happy that VW's showing anything at all with the way things are these days.  And while you might not be seeing the Polo Worthersee on a street near you soon, you'll certainly be seeing new Polos, at least in Europe: there are already 13,000+ pre-orders for the new Polo, which hasn't even gone on sale yet.