The VW GX3: Dead 3/7/06

[L8 Apex]

****in' bureaucrats... 🤬 👎

 

[Poverty]

It just wasnt a VW type of car. If anything they should have sold it as a SEAT.

 

[exigeracer]

If VW won’t build it, might Lotus? Lotus has been helping develop the car, according to various reports.

Not going to happen.

 

[Wolfe]

...That is so the SUXORZ...!

*ahem* That is so teh SUXORZ. Or "t3h SUX0RZ," if you so wish.

It just wasnt a VW type of car.

Exactly. I had my doubts from the beginning.

 

[YSSMAN]

It was a good way to keep our attentions however, was it not?

 

[Sage]

Damn lawyer-happy country – I was so excited about this car.

 

[Wolfe]

It was a good way to keep our attentions however, was it not?

Of course. I was rooting for the car -- I just didn't think it would make it.

 

[YSSMAN]

A sad day for Volkswagen fans indeed...

In early May, we cited an Automobile magazine report suggesting VW was concerned about possible liability issues surrounding the GX3 Concept, which the automaker had plans to mass produce. Later that month, AutoWeek said VW was poised to kill the 125 mph three-wheeler due to these concerns. Today, financial publication Bloomberg confirmed that Volkswagen has killed the project. "With regret, we have concluded that the current and foreseen product liability issues at this time were just too great," Adrian Hallmark, Volkswagen's U.S. chief, said in an e- mailed response to questions. Hallmark said that, since showing the GX3 in Los Angeles, Volkswagen had received "overwhelming" customer responses.

"It would not have been possible for us to build the GX3 with the purity that it required, at the price which prospective customers told us they would be willing to pay," Hallmark said. "Rather than offering a product which deviated from such a basic, honest and original concept, Volkswagen has concluded that, regrettably, production will not be possible."

"The idea of going around with three wheels is a quaint idea from yesteryear," said Stephen Pope, head of equity research at Cantor Fitzgerald in London. "It smacks a bit of stupidity to me. Nice concept, thank you very much, but keep it in the design studio."

A moment of silence for what could-have-been...

...

...

...Wow, that really sucks. One day you think that Volkswagen may have finially built the car for you, and just a short while later the project is dead. It is unfortunate really, as it could have been quite the wonderful car to own.

But it does make you wonder... If it had a fourth wheel, and would have been more like a full production version of the Atom, could they have built it that way?

 

[Onikaze]

Yet another reason for me to dislike VW.

Good going guys, you had purists all over the place drooling too.

Stick another wheel on it like YSS said, we don't care, make it light, affordable, and MR, it will sell.

 

[Sage]

If it sounds too good to be true…

 

[niky]

Yeah, it probably was. A modern day Super Seven type thingamajiggy (never mind the lack of that extra wheel) at less than half the price of an Elise? You just had to know in the back of your mind that it'd never happen. I didn't... just got a little starry-eyed, I guess... like everyone else.

Suxxorz. Totally.

 

[Onikaze]

Well, I was quietly hoping that they would just add a 4th wheel too it, and sell it as a stripped down MR automobile.

Then, for the first time in my life, I would have drooled over a...modern Volkswagon.